Span's Top Diplomat Says Sovereignty Over Ceuta, Melilla Not In Jeopardy

MADRID (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 24th June, 2021) Spanish sovereignty over the North African enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla is not at risk despite Moroccan claims on the territories, Minister of Foreign Affairs Arancha Gonzalez Laya said on Wednesday.

"The sovereignty is not at risk. It is not, it has not been and it will not be," the minister said at a government session in the Congress of Deputies after being asked by a lawmaker from the far-right Vox party about the current diplomatic crisis with Morocco.

Last December, the prime minister of Morocco, Saad Eddine El Othmani, said that one of his objectives is to address the issue of Ceuta and Melilla. Rabat claims that these territories are a part of Morocco even though they have been under Spanish jurisdiction for centuries.

After these statements, the Spanish government summoned the Moroccan ambassador, Karima Benyaich, and told her that "there is nothing to discuss" in this regard.

Last May, a new episode of confrontation took place after Spain decided to allow the leader of the self-proclaimed Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic, Brahim Ghali, to receive medical treatment in a hospital in La Rioja. In retaliation, Morocco decided to stop monitoring its border with Spain in Ceuta, which led to an influx of 10,000 migrants in just 48 hours.

"What Morocco has done is training a threat to finally get Ceuta and Melilla annexed," Vox lawmaker Maria Teresa Lopez Alvarez told the foreign minister.

Arancha Gonzalez Laya responded that "there is no doubt that these two cities are Spain, as well as the external border of the EU."