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Argentina was today urged to respect the wishes of Falkland Islanders to remain British.

Just three people voted to sever ties with the UK – while 1,513 ballots backed the status quo in a referendum.

“It is the clearest possible result there could be,” PM David Cameron said, firing a warning shot at the Overseas Territory’s nearest neighbour.

Voters in the referendum, in the capital Port Stanley, were asked: “Do you wish the Falkland Islands to retain their current political status as an Overseas Territory of the UK?”

Mr Cameron added: “The Falkland Islands may be thousands of miles away but they are British through and through and that is how they want to stay.

"People should know we will always be there to defend them.

“We believe in self-determination.

"The Falkland Islanders have spoken so clearly about their future and now other countries right across the world, I hope, will respect and revere this very, very clear result.”

Argentina lays claim to what it calls Las Malvinas in its constitution and its government reacted angrily to the “publicity stunt”.

Senator Daniel Filmus, an ally of President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, said: “We must denounce this trickery that pretends to represent the popular participation of an implanted population.

"This publicity stunt has no validity for international law.”

Argentina’s foreign minister Hector Timerman added: “The UK lacks any right at all to pretend to alter the juridical status of these territories even with the disguise of a hypothetical referendum.”

Mr Cameron today told Gavin Short, the Chair of the Falklands Legislative Assembly, by telephone that he was “over the moon” with the result and praised the way the referendum had been carried out.

Governor Nigel Haywood called it a “massive demonstration of the way Falkland Islanders feel and of the way they see their future”.

It comes 31 years after Britain launched a task force to win back the islands after an Argentine invasion.

Tensions between the UK and Argentina have risen in recent years because of the possibility of lucrative oil reserves in the region, which is about 8,000 miles away.

Foreign Secretary William Hague said Argentina should accept the result. “We have always been clear we believe in the rights of the Falklands people to determine their own futures,” he said.

“It is only right that, in the 21st century, these rights are respected.”

Shadow Foreign Secretary Douglas Alexander added: “This referendum was a democratic process, overseen by international observers, and has now made clear, once and for all, the view of the Islanders.”