A U.N. committee approved a new resolution Thursday calling on Britain and Argentina to negotiate a solution to their dispute over the Falkland Islands, essentially favoring Argentina's stance in the nearly 200-year-old feud. The 24-nation Decolonization Committee passed the resolution by consensus despite passionate speeches from a pair of Falkland Islands representatives arguing that most islanders want to keep things as they are. The decision showed that the committee members have been largely unmoved by a referendum in the Falkland Islands last year in which more than 99 percent of voters favored remaining a British Overseas Territory. Britain has rebuffed Argentina's calls to negotiate the sovereignty of the wind-swept south Atlantic archipelago, saying it is up to the islands to decide. Argentinean Foreign Minister Hector Timerman railed at Britain for ignoring dozens of U.N. resolutions urging the two countries to sit down and talk.
