MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Spain: We continue to claim sovereignty over Gibraltar.

The Spanish foreign minister said Wednesday that his government maintains its claim to sovereignty over Gibraltar and will continue to press the issue in a renewed dialogue with Britain.

In a speech to the Senate, Miguel Angel Moratinos said the strategy of Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero's Socialist administration would be to recover sovereignty over Gibraltar through dialogue and cooperation.

The minister was responding to criticism by the conservative opposition Popular Party concerning Spanish policy toward Gibraltar, a British colony at the southern tip of the Iberian Peninsula that is perhaps the main obstacle in relations between the two countries.

The Spanish government plans to continue to promote dialogue and cooperation, but "also negotiation because this is what will be suggested as part of a new forum that has just been established between the United Kingdom and Spain with the participation of Gibraltar," said Moratinos.

He addressed lawmakers in response to a question from Sen. Luis Eduardo Cortes of the PP, who said he had the sensation that every time the Spanish government resorted to dialogue, there was a "risk to our interests." Cortes accused Moratinos "of having ceded shared sovereignty" over the rock to Britain "in exchange for putting Gibraltar on the negotiating table with its government as a third party." British officials late last month called Spain's new policy vis-a-vis Gibraltar an "important shift," noting it grants priority to improving the Iberian nation's relations with the Rock's inhabitants by promoting cooperation at the local cross-border level, according to The Times of London.

"This is a good thing," a British diplomat was quoted as saying in the Oct. 27 edition of the newspaper, adding "Gibraltar wants it; the local area adjoining Gibraltar wants it; it makes sense." Moratinos and British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw met that same day in Madrid, talking mostly about Gibraltar.

Gibraltar is a British colony on the southern coast of Spain at the Strait of Gibraltar connecting the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean. Britain took control of the territory in 1704 during the War of the Spanish Succession, and Spain has made repeated claims to regain the piece of land that is home to some 32,000 people. In referendums, most of the residents have indicated they wish to remain under British rule