War is not an option in resolving Argentina's dispute with Britain over the potentially oil-rich Falkland Islands, known here as the Malvinas, Deputy Foreign Minister Victorio Taccetti said Friday.
"War is excluded from our horizon," said Taccetti.
Island residents "should not be worried about this, but they should clearly know that Argentina will not abandon" its claim to the archipelago, Taccetti told Radio Milenium.
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown on Thursday said that London had made "all the preparations" to ensure the Falklands "are properly protected."
Argentina and Britain engaged in a brief but bitter war in 1982 over the archipelago.
Argentina's defeat resulted in the collapse of the military regime that ruled the country at the time, and the restoration of democracy.
The latest round of verbal skirmishes were triggered by Argentina's decree that ships traveling through its waters to the Falklands — home to 3,000 islanders, 1,000 British soldiers and 500,000 sheep — require an Argentine permit.
Foreign Minister Jorge Taiana is scheduled to discuss the dispute with United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on Wednesday, according to an Argentine diplomatic source.
Argentina says that its "jurisdictional waters" are up to 200 nautical miles (370 kilometers, 230 miles) off its coast.
The Falkland Islands lie 450 kilometers off the Argentine coast, beyond the 200-nautical mile limit but within a continental shelf area that Argentina claimed in a UN submission last year.
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