Territorial disputes over the Falkland Islands’ sovereignty have been raised once again. The Argentine president, Christina Fernandez de Kirchner’s wrote a letter to David Cameron which made the front page of The Guardian yesterday. It has created a feverish response from the press, not least The Sun, whose own open letter in today’s Buenos Aires Herald ended by saying to Mrs Kirchner: “HANDS OFF”.

Her letter declares that Britain should hand back the islands which were “forcibly stripped” from Argentina and end the alleged British colonial stranglehold over the islands. She alluded to a UN declaration of 1960 that says member states should “end colonialism in all its forms and manifestations”.

Can I stop you right there please, Christina? There are more issues than just colonial history and territorial disputes here aren’t there though?

Her accusations have been quashed by the British government. Meanwhile, the Falkland government and the British press have shunned her letter for being “historically inaccurate”.

There is nothing new about criticising Britain for clinging to the old imperial days especially by foreign countries. It even reaches TV and cinema. Perhaps Mrs Kirchner recently sat down and watched Skyfall and was inspired by Javier Bardem’s character who is scathing of Britain’s old-fashioned imperial ways? Just a thought.

No, colonialism is a convenient veil to hide behind in Argentina’s most recent attempt to stir up sentiment at home to regain the islands they invaded in 1982.

It is no secret that Argentina faces serious problems domestically and economically and President Kirchner is under increasing pressure. So she’s played her joker card, the one thing that is guaranteed to bide her time and additional support from her electorate: stirring nationalist sentiment.

The majority of Falklanders are British settlers who have emigrated and settled on the island since Britain regained control of the islands in 1833.

Argentina had a small garrison on the islands and it was claimed it was part of the Tierra del Fuego region of Argentina. But this area was not claimed by the Republic of Argentina until after two generations had lived on the islands already.

Neither were there any native people to the islands when the British first landed there in 1690.

But it is now 2013, the age of colonialism is well and truly over. Britain does not purport to hold any form of colonial power over the islands which are self-governing with their own legislative assembly, executive and judiciary. Britain’s only responsibilities over the islands concern defence and foreign policy.

Argentina’s claims bring the words pot, kettle and black to mind. There seem far greater colonial claims emanating from Buenos Aires than there does from London.

After all, wasn’t Argentina founded by colonists? Something about Spain invading and throwing out indigenous peoples, settling there and imposing their rule. Sounds familiar to what Argentina is suggesting should happen in the Falklands now. They’ve already tried invading and doing it.

The UN will refer to the right of self-determination of the people who actually live there and based on the responses of people from the islands  and the government itself, there seems very little will to throw itself to Argentina, nor from Britain to let it happen either.

But why bother? On the surface of it, the Falklands look to have very little strategic value today; it was originally used as a naval base before ships travelled around the dangerous Cape Horn, at the tip of South America.

But I was at a talk with a strategic adviser and a former officer in the Royal Navy who fought in the Falklands War in 1982. He reemphasised that there have been great advances in oil exploration more recently in Falkland waters.

Argentina rather shot themselves in the foot over this though in 1995 when then Foreign Minister Jorge Taiana ripped up an agreement that entitled Argentina to a third of the proceeds from oil and gas found in the Falklands. The issues of gas and oil were raised in March last year. But it’s not something I’ve seen reported about so much this week.

The cynics will see why Argentina is so interested in the islands again and why this latest outburst has happened.

David Cameron responded by saying: “The future of the Falkland Islands should be determined by the Falkland Islanders themselves, the people who live there. Whenever they have been asked their opinion, they say they want to maintain their current status with the United Kingdom.”

Islanders retain that they are “not a colony” of Britain but an Overseas Territory and hope the upcoming referendum in March will spell this out to Argentina once and for all, but don’t hold out much hope. Argentina seems determined even though the islands have never been under their sovereignty.

It is not really anything new that Argentina has turned up the heat on the Falklands debate. But it is certainly about more than the colonialism President Kirchner is using as an excuse.

The Islanders don’t want to be Argentinean but if it really is about the oil (which lets face it, it is) they blew their chance when Taiana ripped up the 1995 agreement.

With the way they’ve been acting over the Falklands it will be a miracle for them if another such agreement came to the table and if the islands decided they did want to be Argentinean.

But you get the feeling Argentina will always want the Falklands ‘handed back’.