Argentina criticises Prince William's tour of duty of Falkland Islands Prince William is on a six-week deployment as an RAF search-and-rescue helicopter pilot in the South Atlantic. Photograph: John Stillwell/AFP/Getty Images Argentina has stepped up its war of words with the UK, issuing an official statement criticising Prince William's planned tour of duty of the Falkland Islands - wearing what Argentina angrily termed "the uniform of the conqueror." The statement from the Argentine foreign ministry, entitled Argentina, a country with good people, was the strongest reaction yet to William's six-week deployment as an RAF search-and-rescue helicopter pilot in the South Atlantic. Prince William will arrive on the Malvinas islands as a member of his country's armed forces. The Argentine people regret that the royal heir will arrive on national soil in the uniform of the conqueror and not with the wisdom of the statesman who works in the service of peace and dialogue among nations," it said. Patriotic fervour is high in Argentina as the 30th anniversary of its invasion of the islands approaches this April. With the support of Argentina's closest neighbours, the country's president, Cristina Kirchner, has imposed a blockade of major South American ports against ships flying the Falklands flag and is threatening to cancel permission for the once-weekly flight that links Port Stanley with neighbouring Chile to overfly Argentina, cutting off the Falklands only commercial air link with the outside world. The ban against ships prompted David Cameron to accuse Kirchner of having "colonialist" aims on an island population that wants to remain a British dependency. In response, she accused Cameron of "mediocrity bordering on stupidity." William Hague, the foreign secretary, said on Tuesday that Britain is sending one of its most modern warships, the destroyer HMS Dauntless, to the Falklands. He called the deployment a routine replacement of another warship, but also stressed that "the Royal Navy packs a very considerable punch." The Ministry of Defence described the move as a routine operation to replace the HMS Montrose, currently in the South Atlantic, although its capability to use its Viper anti-aircraft system to prevent just about any air attack on the islands has infuriated Argentina. "Argentina rejects the British attempt to militarise a conflict regarding which the UN has said both nations must resolve though bilateral negotiations," said the new statement. Anti-British sentiment is also being stirred ahead of Thursday's premiere of the Oscar-nominated The Iron Lady, in which Meryl Streep plays Margaret Thatcher. An online preview of the film shows the moment when Thatcher decided to send the British fleet to counter Argentina's 1982 invasion. "It is shameful they are showing this film in Argentina," said one furious commentator who provocatively proclaimed that the US would never allow the screening of a film glorifying Osama bin Laden. On the other hand, the 1982 invasion was described as "one of the greatest moral swindles suffered by the Argentine people" by another. "Do you even know what moral means," replied a Malvinas hardliner. If you regret that we left the English with 31 ships out of combat then you never had any sense of morality. The online disagreements reflect a noticeable recent shift from formerly unified public opinion on the issue of Malvinas, as the islands are known in Argentina. Despite the passion most Argentines outwardly display, the most recent available poll from 2010 showed that 45% had little or no interest in the Malvinas question. Surprisingly, compared to previous hard-line positions, 24% agreed to the idea of some kind of shared sovereignty solution. Among women and young people the acceptance of shared sovereignty increased to 28%. A small group of 5% even said the islands should remain British. A column last week in the leftist daily Página/12 proposed that Argentina should offer the widest possible autonomy to the islands, still an unthinkable alternative at an official level. "We have to move away from the old sloganeering," says its author Gustavo Arballo, a 36-year-old law professor at the University of La Pampa in central Argentina. We're a nation of 40 million against islands with only a couple of thousand inhabitants, that's like an 18-wheeler bearing down on a bicycle.