Eduardo González
The Minister of Foreign Affairs, Arancha Gonzalez Laya, assured yesterday that “all the protocols in force in our country were followed” during the entry into Spain of the Polisario Front leader, Brahim Ghali.
“All the protocols in force in our country were followed, as it is followed in each and every official flight arriving in our country”, declared the minister during the joint conference with the French Minister of Europe and Foreign Affairs, Jean-Yves Le Drian, at the Viana Palace, in Madrid.
The minister responded in this way to the investigation opened by the Court of Instruction number 7 of Zaragoza on the possible commission of a crime of false documentation and prevarication during the entry of Ghali to Spain. According to the investigation -which includes a testimony of the head of Air Mobility, General José Luis Ortiz Cabañete-, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs had allowed his entry into Spain without a passport and without providing information about the people who were on the plane of the Presidency of Algeria that landed at the Zaragoza Air Base. The Popular Party has requested the appearance of Gonzalez Laya and the Minister of Defense, Margarita Robles, in the Congress of Deputies “to report on the lies in the parliamentary seat to have assured that the entry into Spain of Brahim Gali had been legal”.
The entry of the Polisario Front leader in Spain (who arrived in Zaragoza last April 18, to be admitted in a hospital in Logroño after contracting COVID-19) was the trigger of the serious diplomatic crisis between Madrid and Rabat, which responded with an uncontrolled avalanche of immigrants across the border with Ceuta, in addition to a call for consultations of the Moroccan ambassador in Madrid and a whole series of public accusations against the Spanish government.
Le Drian also referred to the crisis between Spain and Morocco at yesterday’s press conference, especially the possibility of his country acting as a mediator between the two countries. “It is not up to France to mediate between Morocco and Spain, two sovereign countries with their own responsibility”, he assured. “France has excellent relations with both countries, but it is together with Spain in the EU, and that brings a lot of solidarity”, he added, without further details. In any case, he warned, “beyond the events in Ceuta, the EU has to move forward in the area of migration and towards the Pact on Migration and Asylum, and during France’s presidency of the EU Council, which will begin on January 1, we will have to move this pact forward”.
