2007 Morocco–Spain diplomatic conflict

On October 30, the Government of Spain announced the visit of King Juan Carlos I and Queen Sofia to Ceuta and Melilla from 5 and 6 November. The day before, the Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, had told that fact to the opposition leader Mariano Rajoy during an official ceremony, which Rajoy welcomed. The King of Spain had not visited Ceuta and Melilla in his reign. The most immediate antecedent of the stay of King Juan Carlos I in these cities dates back to 1970, when he undertook a visit to Ceuta in his capacity as Prince of Asturias on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of the Spanish Legion. The last visit of a Head of State of Spain to Ceuta and Melilla was by king Alfonso XIII, who was last seen in 1927, and President of the Second Republic, Niceto Alcala Zamora, on 4 November 1933. The king of Spain was scheduled to visit to the autonomous city of Melilla in 1997 on the occasion of the five hundredth anniversary of the founding of the city, but the pressure of the Moroccan authorities led to the cancellation of the visit. On November 5, the King and the Queen of Spain stayed in Ceuta for five hours, where they spoke to the Assembly of the Autonomous City, where the monarch said that he "had an pending commitment to Ceuta". Neither the king nor the Minister of Public Administration who accompanied him, Elena Salgado, or any other Spanish authority made any mention of the situation in Morocco. The King was welcomed by 25,000 people. On November 6, the king came to Melilla, in which the Spanish monarch intervened the Assembly. There he acknowledged the loyalty of Melillans to the Crown. He made specific reference to Morocco, but said that "Spain through mutual respect cultivates relations of sincere friendship with its neighbors." The number of people who gathered to welcome the King was estimated at 30,000. ==Additional background of the conflict==

A month before the announcement of the royal visit, the judge of the National Court of Spain, Baltasar Garzón, had opened a file to investigate an alleged genocide of Sahrawis by Morocco, accepting to process the lawsuit filed in 2006 by various associations defending human rights and relatives of prisoners and disappeared Saharawis, which accused 31 senior officials of Moroccan security. Morocco, meanwhile, was accused of siding with the positions of the Polisario Front. Moroccan spokesman said that "it would be good that Judge Garzon deal a bit of respect for human rights in Tindouf." Among the accused were Driss Basri and former Interior Minister and General Housni Benslimane. As stated by Yassine Mansouri, Foreign Secret Service Chief of Morocco, during a stay in Mallorca, the deterioration of relations is also related to the active position of the Spanish Government and local authorities to untie Muslim believers of Ceuta and the Ministry of Religious Affairs of Morocco; and to bet on movements like the Tablig (Congregation for the Propagation of Islam) or the Muslim Brotherhood. Mansouri informed this to Alberto Saiz, Director of National Intelligence of Spain. The position was due to the wrath of King Mohamed VI, according to Mansouri, he remembered that Moroccan King is the Commander of the Faithful and many mosques in Ceuta had been attached to the Union of Islamic Communities of Spain (UCIDE) (36 of 40 Islamic communities of Ceuta). The image of the UCID leader in Ceuta, Laarbi Maateis, is associated with radical Islamist movements by Morocco. For his part, Laarbi Maateis denied any involvement with fundamentalist movements, indicating that no member of Tablig had ever been arrested or identified as a suspect in connection with jihadism. He also said the prosecution were not understandable "because the Maliki rite is practiced both here and in the rest of Spain and Morocco and no one has tried to change that, especially because it seems to be the best for the city." ==Position of the Moroccan government==

The Prime Minister of Morocco, Abbas El Fassi, reported to the Moroccan parliament that his government would not spare efforts to regain the two cities (Ceuta and Melilla). The next day, November 1, Abbas el Fassi asked the King of Spain to "waive" the trip, while the Minister and Speaker of the Moroccan government, Khalid Naciri, expressed the "total rejection and condemnation" of the royal visit to "despoiled Moroccan cities." Abbas el Fassi, however, at the time said the Spanish press that there was no coercion and that the conflict "must be approached with intelligence, mutual respect, dialogue and concertation." However, on 16 November, the Government of Morocco suspended two high-level visits of Spanish authorities:that of the Minister of Public Works, Magdalena Álvarez, who had planned to deal with the Moroccan Minister of Equipment and Transport Karim Ghellab about the Gibraltar rail tunnel to link the two countries across the strait (an issue on which both are officially working since 2005 when Tangier was treated evolving the fixed links between Europe and Africa and Chief of Staff of the Army of Spain, Admiral Sebastian Zaragoza. ==Position of the Spanish Government==

On the same day, November 1, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Spain, Miguel Angel Moratinos, who was visiting the Moroccan city of Marrakesh, reported orally to the Moroccan Foreign Minister Taieb Fassi-Fihri, despite the manifestations of the Prime Minister, that the King of Spain would visit the cities of Ceuta and Melilla on 5 and 6 November as planned. That same day, in the usual appearance of the Government of Spain after the conclusion of the regular meeting of the Council of Ministers, the Second Deputy Prime Minister Maria Teresa Fernandez de la Vega said that relations with the Moroccan government "were extraordinary" and the journey of the Kings fell within the "institutional normality." On November 3, Defense Minister José Antonio Alonso, in a statement to the Cadena SER said that he hoped the gesture of calling the ambassador-step prior to the breakdown of diplomatic relations, he repeated the words said by Deputy Prime Minister the previous day on the normality of the visit. The Minister of Foreign Affairs expressed on November 14 its confidence in the return of the Moroccan ambassador in Madrid "as soon as possible." ==Political reactions==

Political reactions in Spain The People's Party and United Left political parties, through Angel Acebes and Gaspar Llamazares, respectively, announced their support for the visit of the King of Spain to Ceuta and Melilla. The President of Melilla, Juan José Imbroda, said that "it is not the time to make opposite sounding declarations", in reference to the Moroccan position. Coalition for Melilla, the prime Muslim-based opposition party in the autonomous city, manifested itself as extremely pleased with the visit the King, adding that the presence of the King of Spain was a "historic debt in this city and which, from this formation, we always advocate for the occurrence of the visit." For his part, the President of Ceuta, Juan Jesús Vivas, merely issued an edict in which he urged the citizens to welcome the King, honor him by the presence of Ceutans, and "you will honor yourselves, our city and our beloved country." ==References==