MOSCOW, November 24 (Sputnik) — Argentina is not willing to accept the BBC response to the complaint against popular British TV show Top Gear and its number plate provocation referring to the Falklands war, Argentina's ambassador to the United Kingdom said Monday.
"Mr Cohen [the BBC's Director of Television] merely reassures us that it [the provocation] was not deliberate. We are not prepared to accept this as a full and adequate response to this supposed 'coincidence'," Alicia Castro was quoted as saying by the BBC commenting on the letter she received from the BBC's television director.
In September, Top Gear team, while filming in Argentina, used a Porsche with a number plate H982 FKL which triggered angry protests. Some people referred the provocative number plate to the Falklands conflict between the United Kingdom and Argentina in 1982.
In late October, Castro made a formal complaint considering the number plate incident and urged the BBC to make a public apology for this incident.
However, Top Gear presenter Jeremy Clarkson kept insisting that the plate was a mere coincidence with no intention to offend. The BBC television director replied to the Argentinian ambassador saying that "I would like to reassure you again that nothing we have seen or read since the team returned supports the view that this was a deliberate act," as cited by the BBC on October 31.
In April 1982, the Falklands war broke out between the United Kingdom and Argentina over two British overseas territories in the South Atlantic, the Falkland Islands as well as South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands. The war began when Argentina invaded and occupied the Falkland Islands in an attempt to establish its sovereignty. It lasted for 10 weeks and ended on June 14, 1982, claiming lives of over 900 people, with the islands remaining under British sovereignty.
