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Spain PM says supports Iraq’s ‘sovereignty and stability’

Spain's Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said on Thursday he supported Iraq's "sovereignty and stability", during a visit to Baghdad where he also met with Spanish troops.

Spain PM says supports Iraq's 'sovereignty and stability'
Prime Minister Mohamed Shia al-Sudani meeting with Pedro Sánchez in Baghdad. Photo: IRAQI PRIME MINISTER'S PRESS OFFICE / AFP

“My country, always at the request of the Iraqi authorities, will support the unity, sovereignty and stability of Iraq,” said Sánchez during a press conference with Iraqi Prime Minister Mohamed Shia’ al-Sudani.

Spain has deployed more than 300 soldiers as part of an international anti-jihadist coalition and NATO’s mission in Iraq, commanded since May by Spanish General José Antonio Agüero Martínez.

On Thursday, Sudani lauded the “coalition’s support for Iraqi efforts in its fight against terrorism”.

The coalition, deployed to fight the Islamic State group, has faced increasing attacks since the start of the Israel-Hamas war on October 7th, most of which were claimed by Iran-aligned groups opposing Israel.

READ ALSO: Spain will not join US-led Red Sea coalition

Sánchez visited the Spanish troops at a military base in Baghdad’s high-security Green Zone, where he thanked them on Spain’s behalf for their “efforts and sacrifices in favour of international security and stability”.

“In Iraq, Spain has demonstrated for many years now our solid commitment to something that seems to have been questioned in recent years: multilateralism,” he said.

Iraq is experiencing comparative political stability after decades of conflict, but corruption and nepotism remain major obstacles in the oil-rich country.

Dominated by parties close to Iran, an ally of Palestinian militant group Hamas, tensions have escalated in Iraq since the group’s unprecedented attack on Israel and the subsequent air and ground offensive in the Gaza Strip.

Since mid-October, Washington has documented more than 100 drone and rocket attacks against US and other coalition troops deployed to Iraq and neighbouring Syria.

The majority of the attacks in Iraq have been claimed by Islamic Resistance in Iraq, which opposes US support for Israel in its war against Hamas.

Sánchez, who was accompanied to Baghdad by a delegation of business leaders, said he is dedicated to the development of trade between Spain and Iraq, which derives more than 90 per cent of its income from oil and gas.

Sudani said Iraq would take “preferential measures in favour of Spanish firms” that wanted to establish operations in his country, according to Iraq’s official news agency INA.

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POLITICS

First pardons granted under Spain’s amnesty for Catalan separatists

A politician and police officer on Tuesday became the first people to benefit from Spain's divisive amnesty law for Catalan separatists involved in a botched 2017 secession bid.

First pardons granted under Spain's amnesty for Catalan separatists

The amnesty law – approved last month – is expected to affect around 400 people facing trial or already convicted over their roles in the wealthy northeastern region’s failed independence push, which triggered Spain’s worst political crisis in decades.

Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez agreed to grant the amnesty in exchange for the key support of Catalan separatist parties in parliament to secure a new term in office following an inconclusive general election last July.

READ ALSO: Spain’s contested Catalan amnesty bill comes into force

The separatist parties have threatened to withdraw their support for Sánchez’s minority government unless the amnesty is applied.

Catalonia’s High Court said it had decided to “declare the extinction of criminal responsibility” for former Catalan regional interior minister Miquel Buch, as well as to Lluís Escolà, an officer in Catalonia’s regional police force, since the crimes they were convicted of “have been amnestied”.

Buch was sentenced last year to four and a half years in jail for embezzlement and misappropriation for hiring Escolà in 2018 and paying him out of public coffers to act as a bodyguard for the former head of the regional Catalan government, Carles Puigdemont, while he was in self-imposed exile in Belgium.

Escolà was handed a four-year prison sentence for working as Puigdemont’s bodyguard.

Puigdemont fled Spain to avoid arrest shortly after his government led Catalonia’s failed secession push, which involved an independence referendum that was banned by the courts followed by a short-lived declaration of independence.

Spain’s conservative opposition has staged massive street protests against the amnesty law, which judges must decide to apply on a case-by-case basis.

Puigdemont had said he hopes to return to Spain but there is still a warrant for his arrest and a Spanish court continues to investigate him for the alleged crimes of embezzlement and disobedience related to the secession bid.

He also remains under investigation for alleged terrorism over protests in 2019 against the jailing of several referendum leaders that sometimes turned violent.

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