Robles forcefully reiterates to Morocco that Ceuta and Melilla are Spanish

Ceuta border with Morocco, during the commercial customs pilot test last January. Antonio Sempere (Europa Press)

Spain and Rabat promised more than two months ago to avoid "everything that offends the other party in terms of sovereignty."

The understanding announced by President Pedro Sánchez at the bilateral summit between the two governments in the Moroccan capital begins to present the first cracks.

The Defense Minister, Margarita Robles, has reiterated this Monday "with absolute and total forcefulness" that "Ceuta and Melilla are Spanish (...) and there is nothing more to discuss on this issue."

In an interview broadcast on the Cuatro television network, Robles thus came up against some statements, released on Sunday, by the president of the Moroccan House of Representatives (upper or Senate), the nationalist leader Enaam Mayara, who described in an act politically to Ceuta and Melilla as "occupied cities" that Morocco will one day recover "by way of negotiation (with Spain) and without resorting to the use of arms" and without being "the object of blackmail".

"Ceuta and Melilla are as Spanish as Zamora or Palencia," emphasized the head of Defense in her statements in Cuatro.

“I have recently been to Ceuta and Melilla.

And I feel very Ceuta, I feel very Melilla, because I feel very Spanish”.

Robles insisted that the position of the Government of Spain is clear and forceful: “There is no possibility of debate on this matter.

They are [part of] Spain.

Spot".

The president of the House of Representatives Mayara, born in 1968 in Smara, in Western Sahara then considered by Spain as one of its provinces, had assured in a meeting of the women's organization of the Istiqlal Party (of Independence), that, one year after the new stage of Spanish-Moroccan relations, following the roadmap signed on April 7, 2022 in Rabat between King Mohamed VI and President Sánchez, the Istiqlal "will not stop talking about the colonization of the two cities".

Moroccan 'lobby' in parties and elections

Mayara is also a member of the Executive Committee of the conservative nationalist party, founded nearly 80 years ago to fight for the independence of Morocco from the protectorates exercised by France and Spain since the beginning of the 20th century.

The Istiqlal is also part of the coalition of three parliamentary forces that supports the government of Prime Minister Aziz Ajanuch.

In his speech at the political evening organized in the middle of Ramadan, reported both on social networks and by the Moroccan press, and quoted by the Efe news agency, the nationalist leader also called on the Moroccan community settled in Spain (close to 800,000 residents, of which a third already have a Spanish passport) to "form a

to help defend all issues related to the homeland, Morocco”, through its integration into political parties and its participation in the elections in Spain.

Sánchez is waiting for the invitation that Mohamed VI made to him by telephone on February 1 (who was then absent from his country) to receive him — “very soon,” according to a statement from the Royal Palace — to materialize. in Morocco.

“We have assumed a commitment to mutual respect, whereby in our discourse and in our political practice we are going to avoid everything that we know offends the other party;

especially, in what affects our respective spheres of sovereignty”, the head of the Government said then in the framework of the Spanish-Moroccan summit.

He was referring to Western Sahara (Morocco considers that territory pending decolonization as its own according to the UN) and to Ceuta and Melilla.