/ 6 November 2007

Morocco irked as many cheer Spanish king

Thousands cheered to the boom of a 21-cannon salute welcoming Spain’s king and queen to the North African enclave of Melilla on Tuesday, the second day of a trip that has seriously irked Morocco.

The two-day visit is King Juan Carlos’s first as head of state to Ceuta and Melilla, North African cities that are remnants of Spain’s colonial empire but which Morocco claims as its own territory.

Thousands waving Spain’s red-and-yellow flag packed Melilla’s Plaza de Espana square and chanted ”Ole! Ole! Ole! We are Spanish!” as the king and Queen Sofia arrived on Tuesday.

They received a similar reception on Monday in Ceuta, Spain’s other enclave about 225km further west along Morocco’s northern coast.

Moroccans demonstrated on Monday and Tuesday against the trip, and the Moroccan government last week recalled its ambassador from Spain in protest.

Moroccan Prime Minister Abbas El Fassi said the kingdom will continue to mobilise ”to recover the two occupied cities and the neighbouring islands”, according to Morocco’s official MAP news agency.

Morocco has ”inalienable, legitimate and indisputable rights to reintegrate these lands into its sovereignty”, the prime minister told the House of Representatives, calling the Spanish visit ”inadmissible and inopportune”, MAP said.

In his speeches in both cities, the Spanish king has not mentioned the dispute, saying only that he had long planned to visit Ceuta and Melilla. ”As a king who owes everything to all Spaniards, I had an obligation to visit Melilla with the queen,” he said.

”I could not let more time pass before visiting Melilla,” he said on Tuesday.

Spain defends its sovereignty over Ceuta and Melilla by noting that the cities have been Spanish for more than 400 years, longer than Morocco has been a sovereign state.

The visit comes at a sensitive time. Tuesday also is the 32nd anniversary of Morocco’s annexation of disputed Western Sahara, a region from which Spain withdrew on the death of dictator Francisco Franco in 1975. — Sapa-AP