PP accuses the Government of using the Middle East “as political ammunition” and Albares criticizes it for its “Yes to the war in Iran”

Eduardo González Venezuela, the situation in Palestine, the war in the Middle East, and relations with China and NATO were once again the focus of a new debate in Congress this Wednesday between Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares and the People's Party (PP). The debate highlighted the strong political polarization in Spain across all sectors, including foreign policy. During the parliamentary question time in the plenary session of the Congress, Carlos Rojas, of the PP, harshly criticized Albares's remarks against Venezuelan opposition leader Corina Machado, whom he accused of acting in Madrid as an "ideological leader" for meeting only with "the Spanish far right." He asked the minister to "stop making a fool of himself, start working on the side of freedom, and stop lobbying for dictators." "Foreign policy is the most biased in recent memory," he declared. “They have met with various leaders, but in Latin America they are only meeting with left-wing presidents, when Spain should be meeting with the entire region,” he continued. “It has always been this way, and you are changing this without any explanation, ladies and gentlemen,” he asserted. “If you have stayed to reorganize communism, a very narrow and small future awaits you,” he added. Rojas also accused the government of using the war in the Middle East “as political ammunition, as if the end of the war diminished their rhetoric,” and asserted that, just as his party has criticized and condemned “the photo of President Pedro Sánchez with the Iranian missiles and the support and congratulations to Sánchez from Hezbollah and Hamas,” the government should also criticize and condemn “all of that,” “because neutrality is unacceptable in the face of terrorism.” Carlos Rojas also recalled the Prime Minister’s four trips to China and asked “why President Sánchez called for less Western presence in international organizations while he was there.” “With what European Union consensus, with what agreement from this Congress? Have we changed allies? Will your partners in the Governing Council vote today to withdraw from NATO?” he continued. “You must answer here and clarify for all Spaniards where the Government stands,” he added. Albares' responses In his response, Albares stated that “reality dismantles” the PP's “hypocrisy.” “I don't have to condemn anything here because we have been doing so from the very beginning: Hamas, Hezbollah, the Iranian regime, and all its human rights violations,” he asserted. Furthermore, he affirmed, this Government has been “the first in the world to reject Iran's illegal war because it also harms the interests of Spaniards and their wallets” and has implemented “a five billion euro social safety net to protect Spaniards from the economic consequences of a war that we neither sought nor supported at any time.” In return, he denounced, the PP's actions can be summarized as “writing ‘Yes to the Iran war’ on Twitter, refusing to recognize Palestine and never condemning the genocide in Gaza, not supporting the five billion euro social safety net, and going to Europe to say that Spaniards shouldn't receive Next Generation EU funds.” “When are they going to accept that Palestine has the right to a state? When are they going to condemn Israel's endless violence in Gaza, the West Bank, and Lebanon? When are they going to condemn odious laws like the one the Knesset just passed imposing the death penalty on Palestinians? And much simpler things: when are they going to defend the Spanish soldiers serving under the United Nations flag in Lebanon who are being illegally detained?” he asked the PP MP. “All Spaniards know where Spain would be if you were in power: we would be neck-deep in the illegal war with Iran, we would be handing over five percent of GDP to defense spending, sacrificing public healthcare and education, and we would be aligned with the xenophobic European far right, as in Extremadura,” he concluded.

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