The Argentine Foreign Ministry, through the National Directorate for Antarctica (DNA), and the Uruguayan Antarctic Institute (IAU) signed a Memorandum of Understanding on Antarctic cooperation. The Memorandum was signed by the Director of DNA, Fernanda Millicay, and the Head of the Uruguayan Institute, Rear Admiral Daniel Núñez, at the Palacio San Martín on the occasion of the 41st Antarctic Treaty Consultative Meeting (ATCM).
The National Directorate for Antarctica is the body in charge of managing the Argentine Antarctic Programme. It reports to the Foreign Ministry and within its scope is the Argentine Antarctic Institute, which is in charge of planning, coordinating and overseeing Argentina's scientific activities in Antarctica. The Uruguayan Antarctic Institute is in turn responsible for managing the Uruguayan Antarctic Programme.
The Memorandum of Understanding was signed within the framework of the principles of the Antarctic Treaty: peace, science, the protection of the environment and international cooperation in Antarctica, with the aim of affording a suitable framework to the existing Antarctic cooperation between Argentina and Uruguay, as well as fostering greater scientific cooperation and exchanges between the Antarctic programmes of the two countries.
Earth and life sciences, as well as the protection of Antarctica's environment, provide opportunities for cooperation, like the possibility of coordinating and integrating activities so as to achieve a better and more efficient use of resources.
Argentina has signed over twenty cooperation agreements with other Parties to the Antarctic Treaty, this one being the eighth agreement signed since 2016 (the other seven have been signed with Chile, the People's Republic of China, the Republic of Korea, Japan, Poland, Norway and the United Kingdom).