Argentine leader says oil firms working off Falklands face sanctions

NEW: Argentina's President Javier Milei says oil firms operating off the Falkland Islands will face sanctions, reasserting Buenos Aires' claim on the British overseas territory and declaring the 'winds of change' now favour Argentina.

Argentina's president just threatened sanctions over Falklands oil.

Javier Milei, flanked by his cabinet at the presidential palace, says any firm drilling near the islands will face economic sanctions, and he wants a bill in parliament to make it stick. The target is the Sea Lion oilfield, about 130 miles offshore, an estimated one point seven billion barrels. Britain's Rockhopper and Israel's Navitas plan to start exploring within two years, and Milei says that cannot be allowed to happen.

More than forty years after the war, these old guns still point out to sea, and the argument hasn't moved an inch. In 2013 the islanders voted 99.8 percent to stay British. Three people voted against. Three.

What's actually changed is Washington. Trump says Britain wasn't there to help him with Iran, and Milei claims the US is reassessing its neutrality on the islands. He calls it the winds of change. London's answer is that the islanders are British, full stop.

This is Kateryna Kovalenko, reporting for HIT.