Never mind the Falklands, Argentina now claims Australia, New Zealand, Africa and Japan

BUENOS AIRES — The Argentine government has formally expanded its territorial claim over the Falkland Islands to include Australia, New Zealand and “associated Anglo-Pacific landmasses,” according to a Foreign Ministry white paper released last Tuesday.

Leading Argentinian Senator Cinqa Belgrano defended the move as “a natural extension of anti-colonial principles.”

“If populations of British descent cannot legitimately determine sovereignty in the South Atlantic,” Senator Belgrano announced, “then clearly the same principle applies elsewhere in the imperial maritime sphere.”

According to a UN Committee comprised of Iran, Cuba, Myanmar and Zimbabwe, the people of Australia and New Zealand are planters of British origin, making their claim to self-determination illegitimate.

This argument was presented to the Committee by Diego Rossi, an Argentinian of Italian descent, and seconded by Adolpho Mengele, an Argentinian whose German ancestors moved to Argentina in the late 1940s.

A statement from the Argentina Ministry of Foreign Affairs declared:

"It is a grave offence to Argentinian national pride for Australia and New Zealand, or as we call it Nueva Zelanda, to remain outside Argentina. The great anti-imperialist struggle compels us to reject their so-called sovereignty. Argentina reserves the right to enforce its historic claims by maritime means. Once we rebuild our Navy”

Hardline nationalists within Argentina have gone further, claiming that the same rationale used to justify Argentina's claim to "Las Malvinas", South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands could be extended to other landmasses including the continent of Africa and the country of Japan.

Former Admiral, Mauricio Asesino, whose ship was sunk in 1982, has written in a nationalist paper:

"There is no logical reason why one island in the Atlantic should be treated differently from any other. According to the maritime continuity doctrine, which we invented in 2023, our long-standing claim to islands a long way from Argentina gives us an equally logical claim to islands even further away".

The new policy has received support from the population. A student activist, with 'Las Maldives son Argentinas' tattooed across her torso, said she could not understand why Argentinian claims were limited to just the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. Angelica Fernandez, a 22 year-old politics student, told the OMS:

"Sri Lanka may be in the so-called Indian Ocean, but since the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian oceans are interconnected, we should disregard such colonial-era maritime distinctions".

The governments of Australia, New Zealand and Sri Lanka were contacted for comment, but their respective spokespersons could not stop laughing.