CEUTA, July 13: Spain and Morocco sought to cool tensions in their increasingly strained relations on Saturday, after Morocco deployed troops on a tiny disputed island just off its Mediterranean coast.
Morocco’s deployment of a surveillance team of up to a dozen navy soldiers on the uninhabited islet of Perejil, six km from Spain’s North African enclave of Ceuta, initially triggered a swift and angry reaction from Madrid.
But while it has sent gunboats, submarines and attack helicopters to protect territory it controls along Morocco’s Medite-rranean coast, Spain has also tried to calm the situation.
“One cannot talk about an invasion here, and it does not help anyone to let things get out of hand,” Foreign Minister Ana Palacio told the ABC newspaper in an interview published on Saturday. Madrid has stopped short of claiming full sovereignty over Perejil, as Palacio reiterated her government’s demands for “a return to the status quo ante.”
Spanish Defence Minister Federico Trillo said a naval frigate had arrived at Ceuta, and two corvettes were in Melilla, the second Spanish enclave further east along the coast, near the Algerian border.
“We have reinforced each city with two helicopters and sent another helicopter to the Chafarines (islands), to the main military base on the island, and we have begun reinforcement operations on the surrounding islets,” he told reporters in the central Spanish town of Toledo.
According to television news reports, another half a dozen frigates have been dispatched to the area, plus submarines. Each frigate carries two helicopters and some 160 sailors.
OBSERVATION POST: Morocco said it set up an “observation post” on Perejil, which it calls Leila, “to fight terrorism” as well as illegal migration into Europe across the 20-km Straits of Gibraltar.
Moroccan Communications Minister Mohamed Achaari, in an interview with Madrid’s El Pais newspaper, said the Spanish government had “exaggerated” its reaction to the incident.
“There is no reason to create a drama,” he said. “Morocco wants to use an island under its sovereignty in a different manner to fight more efficiently against the trafficking of immigrants and terrorism.” Madrid and Rabat are at odds over illegal immigration, drug trafficking and fishing rights.—Reuters