UNITED NATIONS, Oct. 22 (Xinhua) — The president of the UN General Assembly (UNGA), Vuk Jeremic, met here on Monday with Hector Timerman, the foreign minister of Argentina, Jeremic’s spokesman told reporters here.
“During the meeting, the minister informed the president about the situation of the Frigate Libertad, a warship of the Argentine Navy that has been held in the Port of Tema (in Ghana),” the spokesman said in a readout to the press here.
Ghana‘s seizure of the Argentine warship started earlier this month, with Libertad detained at the Tema port in eastern Ghana during a “goodwill mission.” On board were 220 crew members as well as 110 students, some of whom are from Uruguay and Chile, media reports said.
The move to embargo the ship was sparked by a claim by NML Capital Limited, a Cyprus-based investment company that is suing the South American country over its 2002 bond default. Argentine President Cristina Fernandez has refused to pay 20 million U.S. dollars as bail to free the warship and its crew, according to earlier reports.
“The (Argentine) minister expressed his grave concern about the situation and reiterated his call to the government of Ghana to desist from its conduct and respect its obligations under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea and the 1926 Convention for the Unification of Certain Rules Concerning the Immunity of the State-owned Vessels,” the UN readout said.
“The (UNGA) president underlined the need for all member states to fully comply with their obligations under international law and conveyed his disposition to assist both parties to reach a solution on the issue,” it added.
On Oct. 19, the Argentine foreign minister said in Buenos Aires, the capital of Argentina, that Ghana‘s seizure of the warship is ” illegal” because “the warship has immunity established in several international conventions signed by the Republic of Ghana.”
