Spain changes its position and a diplomatic and political crisis is overcome - Gustavo de Arístegui

Spain changes its position, a diplomatic and political crisis is overcome, but Morocco must provide guarantees on Ceuta and Melilla, territorial waters and migration, says Gustavo de Arístegui, former ambassador of Spain in India.

When a government in a state political matter makes a substantive success, even though it has made a mistake in the form, it is necessary to analyze the substance and not just the form, Gustavo de Arístegui explains: “We truly believe that the gesture of the President of the Government to go to Ceuta and Melilla to reaffirm the undeniable, non-negotiable, inalienable and always defendable Spanishness of Ceuta, Melilla and the Canary Islands seems to me to be a success. Criticizing that seems to me an error of analysis, perception and even patriotism, on the other hand, we all know that the demands are going to be more formal than anything else, they cannot be compared”. 

Gustavo also clearly underlines that when the parallel is drawn between the situation in the Sahara and Ceuta and Melilla, the ones who are equating both things are the ones who use that argument. “You cannot use the argument that you cannot give in on one thing because you don't give in or the other because it can automatically be inferred unequivocally that whoever says that is making a parallel between both situations when they are completely and radically different” the diplomat said.

Gustavo de Arístegui asked to search for a viable, reasonable, credible and acceptable solution for both parties. “No one has said that this will be done outside the framework of the United Nations, it does not imply at all that the others have to do it or that it is a bargaining chip”, he said. 

Gustavo Manuel de Arístegui is a Spanish politician,
 diplomat and an international analyst.
He is the former ambassador of Spain in India. 

That being said, Gustavo de Arístegui also asserts that the government must be behind closed doors and with its interlocutors and in a polite manner say that Ceuta, Melilla, the Canary Islands are untouchable and non-negotiable and that international waters are what the 1980 Jamaican convention dictates and cannot be varied by the law or international law. 

Gustavo de Arístegui also points out that, in the international context, the Russian invasion of Ukraine also has had a lot to do with it. The presence of the US Undersecretary of State, Wendy Sherman, in Madrid, Rabat and then in Algeria, in addition to the US Secretary of State who travelled to Rabat before the Spanish Minister Albares did, shows us that the agreement arrived at has guarantee because it has the implication of the United States. 

After a bit of a diplomatic exercise, Gustavo de Arístegui concludes that if one takes the list of countries that have voted against the resolution condemning Russia, one can see the countries that support the Polisario, which, as he mentions is not the only representative of the Saharawi people. There are many more Saharawis in Western Sahara than in the Tindouf camps and consequently the Polisario only represents one part, but it is very interesting to see that all those who have opposed the resolutions that condemned Russia, to a great extent, are precisely the countries that support the Polisario, affirms the former ambassador Gustavo de Arístegui.