Falklands, Round II?

Well, now that the British have been branded as weak over their hostage crisis, Argentina may try a 2nd go at getting the Falklands back.

BUENOS AIRES (AFP) - Argentina clung to its claim of sovereignty over Britain's Falkland Islands Monday as the two countries marked the 25th anniversary of their war over the small Atlantic islands.

Vice President Daniel Scioli reaffirmed the government's goal of winning control of the Falklands, which Argentina calls the Malvinas, in a speech before war veterans in Ushuaia, the world's southernmost city.

"The war has not changed the reality: the Malvinas are Argentine, they have always been and they always will be," Scioli said in the capital of Tierra del Fuego province, which would oversee the Malvinas.

"We will recover what is ours," he said at the main ceremony marking the anniversary, attended by hundreds of people. Scioli also urged Britain to sit down for negotiations on the islands.

Foreign Minister Jorge Taiana said Argentina would continue pressing its case before international bodies.

"We will do so firmly," Taiana said in the southern city of Rio Grande, where thousands of people attended a vigil honoring fallen Argentine soldiers.

President Nestor Kirchner, who decided not to attend the Ushuaia ceremony, has made the Falklands claim a strategic part of his foreign policy since his 2003 election, telling the United Nations he would seek a peaceful track.

Argentina has stepped up pressure in the lead up to the war's anniversary.

Argentina unilaterally canceled a bilateral oil exploration agreement with Britain and announced sanctions against companies exploring in the disputed area.

As much as 60 billion barrels of crude lie in ocean-bed structures around the archipelago, which has been British since 1833.

Britain and Argentina waged a two month war after Argentina's military government, headed by General Leopoldo Galtieri, invaded the remote South Atlantic islands, 480 kilometers (300 miles) off its coast, on April 2, 1982.

More than 900 people died -- including 649 Argentine and 255 British troops and three islanders -- during air, land and sea hostilities.

Some 12,000 kilometers (8,000 miles) away, Britain's then prime minister Margaret Thatcher, whose "Iron Lady" reputation was forged during the crisis, sent in 110 ships and 28,000 military personnel to retake the islands and liberate the around 3,000 inhabitants.