Obama says he will ask Argentina's leader to return military equipment

The diplomatic tumult between Argentina and the United States over the confiscation of US military equipment by Buenos Aires custom officers last month reached new heights when President Barack Obama publicly said he will personally demand Argentinean President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner return the mysterious gear.

Obama's call was made to columnist Andres Oppenheimer of The Miami Herald during an exclusive interview while the US leader was in El Salvador last Wednesday, the last day of his three-nation tour of Latin America. The journalist asked Obama whether a White House spokesman had overreacted when he described the incident as "serious." Obama's answer was no.

"It is serious in the sense that Argentina has historically been a friend and a partner of the United States. They have some of our communications equipment. There is no reason not to return it. And next time I see President Kirchner, I will mention, 'Can we get our equipment back?' But it's not going to be a defining aspect of the US-Argentine relationship."

In Buenos Aires, soon after Obama's comments were made public, a presidential spokesman said that Fernández de Kirchner wasn't planning on returning the goods anytime soon.

"The government has no intentions of returning the equipment from the US airplane," the spokesman told the Buenos Aires daily La Nación on Thursday. "The president is dealing with the matter but there isn't any rush to resolve this and much less so two days before the visit of [Venezuelan] President [Hugo] Chávez."

In February, officials in Buenos Aires detained a US air force plane and seized items that were to be used in a training exchange on hostage rescue with the Argentinean federal police.

Strange cargo

Foreign Minister Héctor Timerman lodged a formal protest with the US Embassy saying that some of the materials were suspicious and had not been included on the official list of equipment to be used in the training mission.

Some of the "unauthorized materials" were prescription drugs to be used by a member of the US training team, Washington said. Earlier this month, a judge found that no crime had been committed, but Buenos Aires has refused to budge.

Some analysts, such as Oppenheimer, suggest that Kirchner de Fernández's ploy is designed to capitalize on anti-American sentiment ahead of this year's presidential elections.