The General Assembly of the Organization of American States (OAS) today adopted by acclamation a declaration supporting Argentina on the question of the Malvinas Islands. The recovery of the islands was termed "an ongoing and irrevocable objective" by Foreign Minister Guido Di Tella.

In the declaration, the General Assembly welcomes "the reiteration of the will of the Argentine government to explore all possible ways for the peaceful settlement of the controversy and, in particular, its positive considerations towards the inhabitants of the Malvinas Islands" and decides to continue to examine the matter at subsequent sessions until a definitive solution is reached.

Earlier, Foreign Minister Di Tella had briefed the third plenary session of the General Assembly on developments in this area. His government was confident, he had noted, that "the painstaking efforts being made in various fora regarding the South Atlantic and the development of closer relations with the United Kingdom in all areas will create favorable conditions for the long-delayed resolution of this dispute."

During the same session, the Foreign Minister of Bolivia, Javier Murillo de la Rocha, made a statement on the maritime problem of his country and proposed to Chile that, within the framework of the OAS General Assembly, the two countries "begin as soon as possible a process of joint reflection on the future our peoples, in all dimensions of bilateral and hemispheric integration, to build a framework for the definitive resolution of the problems we have inherited from the past, most importantly the reinstatement of Bolivia as a maritime nation."

In response to the Bolivian minister’s proposal, the Foreign Minister of Chile, Jos� Miguel Insulza, remarked that it was not within the purview of the OAS to consider matters subject to the sovereignty of its member states, and affirmed that his government was prepared to "assure Bolivia of unrestricted access to the Chilean Pacific coast, but not to call into question matters subject to our national sovereignty."

During the same session, the foreign minister of Guyana, Clemente Rohee, presented a report on the general elections held in his country late last year, following which a dialogue of heads of delegation was begun on the subject: "Cooperation for development in the Americas."

The Secretary of State of the United States, Madeleine Albright; and the Foreign Ministers of Trinidad and Tobago, Ralph Maraj; Colombia, Camilo Reyes Rodr�guez; El Salvador, Ren� Eduardo Dom�nguez; Mexico, Rosario Green; Jamaica, Anthony Hylton; and Saint Lucia, George Odlum, expressed their views on the subject of cooperation and underscored the important role to be played in this regard by the OAS Inter-American Council for Integral Development (CIDI).