LONDON: Britain's biggest-selling tabloid The Sun hit back at Argentina's President Cristina Kirchner's renewed claim over the disputed Falkland Islands in an open letter to her in a Buenos Aires newspaper on Friday.

A day after Kirchner published her own open letter in two British newspapers urging Britain to give up the South Atlantic islands, The Sun placed an advert in the Buenos Aires Herald warning Argentina to keep its "hands off" the Falklands.

"Until the people of the Falkland Islands choose to become Argentinian, they remain resolutely British," The Sun said in its reply to Kirchner, printed in English and Spanish in the English-language Herald.

"British sovereignty over the Falkland Islands dates back to 1765 -- before the Republic of Argentina even existed."

The letter concludes: "In the name of our millions of readers, and to put it another way: 'HANDS OFF!'"

Home to 3,000 people, the windswept islands have been administered by Britain since 1833 after a British expedition took formal possession of West Falkland in 1765, according to Britain's Foreign Office.

But the archipelago, known in Spanish as Las Malvinas, is also claimed by Argentina and the two countries fought a brief but bloody war in 1982 that left 255 British soldiers and 649 Argentinian troops dead.

Tensions between Britain and Argentina rose last year on the 30th anniversary of the conflict and Kirchner has clashed publicly with British Prime Minister David Cameron over the issue.

Cameron said on Thursday that the islanders had a strong desire to remain British and would have a chance to express their views in a referendum on their political status in March.

The islanders are expected to vote strongly in favour of continued union with Britain.

Census data released in September showed that 95 percent of residents considered themselves to be either Falkland islanders, British, or from Saint Helena, another British overseas territory in the South Atlantic.