Argentine Leader Vows to Reclaim Falklands

BUENOS AIRES — President Carlos Saul Menem told Parliament on Friday that he is committed to recovering the British-held Falklands and other South Atlantic islands over which his nation claims sovereignty.

"It (the recovery of the islands) is a banner which cannot be negotiated, a cause which cannot be forgotten," he said in the traditional May Day presidential speech to Parliament.

Britain and Argentina went to war in 1982 after Argentina's former military government invaded the islands, which lie 250 miles off the mainland. A British military force recovered the islands after a bloody, 10-week war in which an estimated 1,000 servicemen died.