MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Spain trusts Gibraltar and Malvinas cases will be addressed at next UN General Assembly

Minister Garcia-Margallo considers urgent the promotion of the four-side Cooperation Forum rejected by the UK

Spain’s Foreign Affairs Minister Jose Manuel Garcia-Margallo trusts the next UN General Assembly will debate on the Gibraltar and Malvinas Islands conflicts, “and express support for negotiations”.

At the end of the Somalia conference held on Thursday in London, Garcia Margallo said that since Argentina and Spain have again emphasized their claims over those territories, the reasonable thing is for the UN to discuss both issues in its coming general assembly.

“There’s no need for a prophet or a Pulitzer Prize to know that in the coming UN session, Malvinas and Gibraltar will be discussed and that the UN will again reiterate that we must sit and negotiate”.

However the Spanish minister said that the cases are different in so far the juridical situation is concerned: “they look alike because they are included in the UN list of territories subject to decolonization; because the principle of self determination is not applicable and in both cases the sponsored solution is that it must be negotiated”.

During the Somalia conference Garcia-Margallo had a bilateral meeting with his counterpart Foreign Secretary William Hague to whom he transmitted the position of the new Spanish government of President Mariano Rajoy which favours retaking a “constructive dialogue” on Gibraltar.

The official position of Spain is “no back stepping as (Cuban) commander Castro would say, not even to take impulse”, revealed Garcia-Margallo who admitted that Hague only said that “we’ll talk” about Gibraltar.

UK rejects any Gibraltar negotiation unless the Gibraltarians so demand it as it was clearly expressed by Prime Minister David Cameron on Tuesday following his meeting in London with Spanish president Rajoy.

Garcia-Margallo claimed the resurfacing of the so called 1984 Brussels process by which Spain and the UK are committed to negotiate the domain of the Overseas Territory and added that Spain will communicate by letter to the UK its rejection to the Gibraltarians having the right to veto, in the event of the beginning of negotiations.

The letter said Garcia Margallo, will be in reply to another one sent three years ago by then Foreign Secretary Jack Straw and never replied by then Spanish Foreign Affairs minister Miguel Angel Moratinos, in which he states that the people Gibraltar can impede the resumption of negotiations and therefore have the right to veto.

“Tomorrow I will be replying to the Straw letter explaining that it is contrary to the Brussels process and the UN doctrine” and to ensure that the UK position does not create doctrine in International Law.

The Spanish minister also pointed out that what is “urgent” now is to promote the Cooperation Forum so that it becomes a four-side dialogue involving the UK and Spanish governments plus Gibraltar and the neighbouring Campo de Gibraltar (south of Spain) to address administrative issues “but never issues of sovereignty or jurisdiction”.

The Dialogue Forum implemented in 2004 “in its Socialist version is dead”, insisted Garcia-Maragallo referring to a tripartite forum in which Gibraltar participated in equal level with the Spanish and British governments.

However Garcia Margallo admits the London position remains in support of the tripartite forum and of the right to self determination for the people of Gibraltar.