The Defense Minister, Margarita Robles, said this Monday, “with total forcefulness”, that “Ceuta and Melilla are Spanish”, in response to the president of the House of Councilors of the Moroccan Parliament, Enaam Mayara, who has considered them cities “colonized” and has called for their recovery through negotiation.

“Ceuta and Melilla are as Spanish as Zamora or Palencia and there is nothing more to discuss on that subject,” Robles has settled when asked about these statements by Enaam Mayara, who is a member of the Executive Committee of the Moroccan nationalist party Istiqlal, which forms part of the tripartite headed by the Government of Morocco.

Margarita Robles added: «I have recently been to Ceuta and Melilla and I feel very Ceuta and very Melilla, because I feel very Spanish».
“The position of the Government of Spain is clear and forceful and there is no possibility of debate on this matter,” the minister concluded.
On the other hand, Mayara also encouraged Moroccans residing in Spain to join Spanish political parties and to participate in the elections “to help bring the opinions of the two countries closer together and form a lobby that helps defend all issues related to the homeland, Morocco”, in an apparent allusion also to the question of the Sahara.

Mayara’s statements coincide with the change of position of the Executive of Pedro Sánchez regarding the Sahara, in a controversial twist that coincides in time with the spying scandal of the Pegasus program on the mobile phone of the President of the Government.
Robles responds to the president of the Moroccan Senate: “Ceuta and Melilla are as Spanish as Zamora”
Pedro Sanchez and Margarita Robles.
ROBERT GRANDA
4/10/2023 6:11 PM UPDATED: 4/10/2023 6:12 PM
The Defense Minister, Margarita Robles, said this Monday, “with total forcefulness”, that “Ceuta and Melilla are Spanish”, in response to the president of the House of Councilors of the Moroccan Parliament, Enaam Mayara, who has considered them cities “colonized” and has called for their recovery through negotiation.

“Ceuta and Melilla are as Spanish as Zamora or Palencia and there is nothing more to discuss on that subject,” Robles has settled when asked about these statements by Enaam Mayara, who is a member of the Executive Committee of the Moroccan nationalist party Istiqlal, which forms part of the tripartite headed by the Government of Morocco.

Margarita Robles added: «I have recently been to Ceuta and Melilla and I feel very Ceuta and very Melilla, because I feel very Spanish».
“The position of the Government of Spain is clear and forceful and there is no possibility of debate on this matter,” the minister concluded.

On the other hand, Mayara also encouraged Moroccans residing in Spain to join Spanish political parties and to participate in the elections “to help bring the opinions of the two countries closer together and form a lobby that helps defend all issues related to the homeland, Morocco”, in an apparent allusion also to the question of the Sahara.

Mayara’s statements coincide with the change of position of the Executive of Pedro Sánchez regarding the Sahara, in a controversial twist that coincides in time with the spying scandal of the Pegasus program on the mobile phone of the President of the Government.

The moment in which the espionage took place, at the point of greatest tension in the diplomatic crisis with Morocco and in the midst of the massive entry of immigrants into Ceuta, has generated numerous speculations that Morocco was behind it, and even from some parliamentary groups and social sectors. It has been suggested that the information obtained could have been used to put pressure on the Government and to support the Moroccan autonomy plan for the Sahara.

Sánchez staged the new stage of compliance with Morocco a year ago, when Mohamed VI invited him to participate in iftar, the lunch with which Muslims break their fast during Ramadan. At this meeting, the Alaouite king received the Spanish president with the Spanish flag placed upside down, with the coat of arms facing down, in what seems unlikely to be a mere failure of protocol.

A few weeks ago, Spain admitted that it was negotiating with Morocco over the management of the Western Sahara airspace.