USA-Gibraltar: Gibraltar's Chief Minister Peter Caruana Insists Spain Give Up Its Claim To Gibraltar

Record ID: 3939

  • Title: USA-Gibraltar: Gibraltar's Chief Minister Peter Caruana Insists Spain Give Up Its Claim To Gibraltar
  • Date: 9th October 1997
  • Summary: Gibraltar's Chief Minister on October 10 insisted Spain give up its claim to the tiny Mediterranean territory, during a speech to the United Nations Special Committee on decolonisation. Peter Caruana, Gibraltar's Chief Minister, told the United Nations Fourth Committee that the people of his tiny territory want to become a crowned territory of Great Britain, maintaining a democratic relationship which is not colonial in nature. He also called on Spain to cease its claims on the territory and to meet the United Kingdom at the negotiating table. Gibraltar was passed to Spanish hands in 1462 and was seized by Britain in 1704. It was ceded by Spain in perpetuity under the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713 and became a British colony. Spain has claimed it ever since, generating regular tensions with London. "We do not wish to be part of Spain, we do not wish to be integrated with Spain," Caruana told Reuters Television. "And we do not think that in the European Union of 1997 that we should be bullied by a democratic part of the European Union into trying to make us capitulate to their unwanted overtures to our sovereignty. " Caruana did add, however, that this position is not one of hostility, and that Gibraltar does want to maintain a civil relationship with Spain, working out a solution for the colony's future status through the United Nations.
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  • Location: USA NEW YORK CITY UNITED NATIONS
  • Reuters ID: LDL00127AJ3VB
  • Aspect Ratio: 4:3
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  • Copyright Holder: Reuters Archive
  • Copyright Notice: (c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2014. Open For Restrictions - http://about.reuters.com/fulllegal.asp
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