Lord Cameron becomes first UK foreign secretary to visit Paraguay

Lord Cameron has arrived in Paraguay, becoming the first UK foreign secretary to visit the South American nation.

While in Asuncion he will hold talks with president Santiago Pena and foreign minister Ruben Ramirez Lezcano.

The former prime minister is expected to discuss co-operation on trade, the environment, education and human rights issues with the Paraguayan leadership.

It is the latest leg of the Foreign Secretary’s tour, which began in the Falkland Islands and will continue on to Brazil and the United States.

On Tuesday morning, Lord Cameron began his day with a swim in the cold South Atlantic before seeing some of the Falkland Islands’ penguins.

On a walk around Gypsy Cove, the Foreign Secretary saw a small group of Magellanic penguins in the dunes and a pod of dolphins swimming in the waters below the windswept footpath.

He chatted to children involved in a local conservation group, who persuaded him to try a piece of edible grass growing along the coast.

“It tastes like celery,” the Foreign Secretary said before offering the stem to the youngsters to try – they all declined.

During his visit he also met members of a Zimbabwean demining team who had helped make the area safe by clearing munitions left over from the 1982 war.

The Foreign Secretary also spoke to military personnel and their families based at Mount Pleasant airbase before departing for Paraguay.

The former prime minister’s visit to the Falkland Islands is the first by a foreign secretary since 1994 and the first by any Cabinet minister since 2016.

Speaking in the Falklands’ capital Stanley on Monday night following a wreath-laying ceremony to honour those killed in the 1982 war, he played down suggestions from the Argentinian President Javier Milei that there could be a negotiation on the future of the UK overseas territory.

Lord Cameron said: “Let me be absolutely clear: as far as we are concerned, as long as the Falkland Islands want to be part of the UK family they are absolutely welcome to be part of that family and we will support them and back them and help protect and defend them absolutely, as far as I’m concerned, for as long as they want.

“And I hope that’s for a very, very long time, possibly forever.”

The shadow of the Falklands War hangs over UK-Argentine relations, but Lord Cameron and Mr Milei had a “warm and cordial” meeting at the World Economic Forum in Davos in January, although on the issue of the islands, the Foreign Office said “they would agree to disagree, and do so politely”.

Lord Cameron told reporters in Stanley: “Now of course we want to have good relations with Buenos Aires, with the Argentine government.

“The new government, I think, have taken some positive steps and we’ll have good relations with them, but it will never be at the expense of the wishes of the Falkland Islanders, who in our view absolutely come first in this manner.”

After his meetings in Paraguay the Foreign Secretary will attend a summit of G20 counterparts – including Russia’s Sergei Lavrov – in Brazil on Wednesday.

Russia’s actions in Ukraine will also be the subject of a United Nations session in New York later in the week which Lord Cameron will attend.