Argentina will seek legal punishment, including prison sentences, for anyone who drills for oil in the Falklands and the surrounding waters it claims as its territories, the country's newly created Malvinas secretary has told the Guardian.

In his first interview with the international media since taking the post on Monday, Daniel Filmus also warned that companies involved in exploration of the disputed areas will be disqualified from potentially more lucrative work in Vaca Muerta (the giant shale oil deposit in Argentina's Patagonia region) and offshore areas.

"We will go to the international courts. It must be known that Argentina will defend its claim," Filmus told the Guardian at his office in the ministry of foreign affairs. "Whoever doesn't obtain authorisation will not only face administrative consequences but will also face prison sentences."

The tough statement emphasises the government's determination to enforce a recently passed law bringing in fines of up to $1.5bn and prison sentences of up to 15 years for companies and executives who explore for oil on the Falklands seabed without permission from Buenos Aires.

Given the country's lack of authority over the Falklands (known as the Malvinas in Argentina), applying such sanctions may be difficult, but Filmus's new role will require creative new strategies to push a territorial claim that was knocked off course by the 1982 war. Up until the invasion by General Leopoldo Galtieri's troops, London and Buenos Aires had conducted decades of secret talks about the possibility of shared sovereignty or a leaseback of the islands.

Daniel Filmus, the new Malvinas secretary. Photograph: Brazil Photo Press/LatinContent Editorial

Filmus said his central goal was to bring Britain back to the negotiating table. "Those [previous] talks implied the recognition of the existence of the dispute and that the way to resolve it was by both sides sitting down in an adult fashion to talk. What we are asking for is to give dialogue a chance," he said.

But Argentina will continue to refuse to talk to the islands' inhabitants, who voted overwhelmingly last year to remain under UK rule. Filmus said they do not have the right to proclaim their islands British. "There are 250,000 British descendants in Argentina, but they don't claim the land they stand on is British," he said.

Argentina's strategy is thought unlikely to change under Filmus, who is a close ally of President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner and answers to the foreign minister, Héctor Timerman. The new appointee comes to the job after four years as president of the Senate's foreign relations committee, where the Falklands was a permanent issue. The former education minister belongs to a generation that witnessed how the country's 1976-83 dictatorship made some 30,000 of its own citizens "disappear" in death camps before losing power as a result of its fruitless attempt to wrest the islands from British control.

A total 649 Argentinians and 255 British subjects lost their lives in that confrontation. "I recall it as one of the most painful events during the time of the dictatorship," said Filmus who was a 27-year-old teacher at the time. "I wasn't called to service but many companions and friends were. It was enormously painful."

The nation's leaders placed their claim to the Malvinas on the back burner for the following two decades. But Fernández de Kirchner has rekindled the nationalist flame, marshalling the support of her country's South American neighbours for her demand for a negotiated settlement.

The new post created for Filmus is meant to underline the earnestness of Argentina's claim. "It's a decision taken by the president to reaffirm the importance the government gives to the Malvinas problem," he said. "There are few issues in Argentina that provoke such heartfelt support from not only all political forces but from the population in general."

In a sharply worded statement, the British Foreign Office said Argentina's initiative would fail. "The British government fully supports the rights of the Falkland Islanders to develop their hydrocarbons sector for their economic benefit. This right is an integral part of their right of self-determination, which is expressly contained in the international covenant on civil and political rights. All hydrocarbons activities on the continental shelf of the Falkland Islands are regulated by legislation of the Falkland Islands government, in strict accordance with the United Nations Convention of the Law of the Sea.

"Argentina's attempts to strangle the Falkland Islands' economy and damage our important bilateral trading relationship will not succeed.. We want to have a full and friendly relationship with Argentina, as neighbours in the South Atlantic and as responsible fellow members of the G20, but we will not negotiate away the rights of the Falkland Islands' people against their will or behind their backs."