Argentina to file criminal charges against Israeli company over Falklands drilling

The Argentinian government previously sanctioned the Israeli firm for carrying out oil-drilling operations without authorization.

By Etgar Lefkovits, JNS

Argentina’s government announced on Monday that it will file criminal charges against an Israeli company for operating in the Falkland Islands.

The move came just days after Argentine President Javier Milei pledged to sanction oil companies drilling in the British overseas territory in the South Atlantic Ocean, heightening the two-century-old dispute over the territory.

The planned legal action against Israeli energy company Navitas Petroleum followed news that it intends to carry out offshore drilling in the archipelago with the British firm Rockhopper, which set off a diplomatic storm earlier this year despite otherwise burgeoning bilateral relations between Israel and Argentina.

At the time, Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar informed Argentina that the Israeli government was not involved in, and had no control over, Navitas’s operations, given that it is a public company.

The Argentinian government previously sanctioned the Israeli firm for carrying out oil-drilling operations without authorization, based on a 1976 United Nations resolution that established that neither Argentina nor the United Kingdom can make unilateral decisions over the territory as long as negotiations over the sovereignty of the Falklands continue.

The issue of the islands, known to Argentinians as Las Malvinas, is a perennially charged topic in Buenos Aires.