By NBC News’ partner, ITV News

Britains Falkland Islands are to hold a referendum on their “political status” – hoping to bring an end to the continuing dispute with Argentina over the islands’ sovereignty, their government said Tuesday.

Britain and Argentina in 1982 went to war over the South Atlantic islands, and 30 years later tensions have escalated between the two nations.

Cristina Fernandez, Argentina’s president, has asserted her country’s claims to the islands – known in Spanish as Las Malvinas and has asked for negotiations with Britain to end their colonial control from London.

An Argentinian television ad showing an Olympic hopeful training on a British war memorial in the Falklands has been branded a “stunt” by foreign secretary William Hague. ITN reports.

The referendum is expected to take place in the first half of 2013.

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Gavin Short, chairman of the Legislative Assembly for the Falkland Islands, said he hoped a referendum would indicate islanders are “certain” about their future.

Mr Short said: I have no doubt that the people of the Falklands wish for the islands to remain a self-governing overseas territory of the United Kingdom.

We certainly have no desire to be ruled by the government in Buenos Aires, a fact that is immediately obvious to anyone who has visited the islands and heard our views.

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