The Falklands are back on the agenda as a potential source of diplomatic conflict.

Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner - Argentina's president - has taken out advertisements in British newspapers today in which she claims that the Falklands were originally inhabited by Argentineans who were driven out by the British on this day - 3 January - in 1833. She now says she wants them back.

Klaus Dodds, Professor of geopolitics at Royal Holloway, University of London, told the Today programme: "If you go back a bit further to the 1760s, what you find is a fundamentally messy history of the Falklands, involving the British, the French, the Spanish, and the Argentine republic, as well as a little Irish presence.

"So when the president claims that the British threw out the Argentines, I think that's a bit of a rhetorical over-flourish. We have a far more complicated picture than that."

"The prime minister should politely acknowledge the letter... but frankly I wouldn't take it very seriously."

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