SPAIN is launching a diplomatic offensive to rebuild its relationship with Britain and the United States after its fierce criticism of the Iraq war, Miguel Ángel Moratinos, the Spanish Foreign Minister, told The Times yesterday.

The 53-year-old diplomat used his first interview with a British newspaper since taking office to explain his Government’s conciliatory new approach on Gibraltar, defend Spain’s decision to withdraw its troops from Iraq and outline initiatives to narrow the divide between Europe and America.

On Gibraltar, he said: “What we want is that, instead of being a continual irritant, Gibraltar becomes a normal issue that two friends and allies have to discuss.

“We are not renouncing or putting aside sovereignty, but we also want to create an atmosphere that will facilitate a better understanding.”

On the need to rebuild transatlantic relations, he said: “It’s high time that the Americans and the Spanish and the Europeans have a clear strategic debate about how we should work together.”

Since José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero’s Socialists swept the conservative Popular Party Government of José María Aznar from power in a general election three days after the Madrid bombings last March, Señor Moratinos has presided over a radical change in Spanish foreign relations. Spain withdrew its troops from Iraq, to the dismay of Washington and London, and appeared to reject Señor Aznar’s staunch Atlanticism in favour of rejoining the “Old Europe” axis of France and Germany.

Señor Moratinos has no party political background. He served six years as the European Union’s special envoy for the Middle East peace process and was recruited by Señor Zapatero precisely because of his pedigree as an international heavy-hitter.

He said that the first move in his efforts to rebuild alliances with Britain and the US was to lift the “siege” of Gibraltar and court Gibraltarians — a radical departure from Spain’s traditional hardline policy towards the Rock.

“We are engaging in a sound and substantial relaunch of Spanish-British relations, where we have a very intensive agenda,” he said. “It’s not just Gibraltar. It’s European affairs, the transatlantic agenda and terrorism.”

Spain did not intend to renounce its claim of sovereignty over Gibraltar — yet. “At this stage we continue to claim sovereignty,” he said, “but we have a new strategy.

“We have to take into account not only the future of the land itself, but also its people, so instead of creating blocking obstacles, making them the objective of reactive policies, we prefer to foster co-operation in order that everybody in the region benefits.”

Señor Moratinos revealed that Spain will shortly propose a grand renewal of the New Transatlantic Agenda, an agreement to work together on issues ranging from promoting democracy to expanding world trade that President Clinton and Felipe González, the Spanish Socialist Prime Minister — as President of the European Council — signed in Madrid nearly a decade ago.

“We want to reinforce the Transatlantic Agenda. The original treaty was a Spanish initiative. In its tenth anniversary we intend to propose to whomever the new US President is that it requires a review and some updating.

“We have common challenges and one of those, of course, is terrorism. I think it’s high time that the Americans and the Spanish and the Europeans have a clear strategic debate about how we should work together.”

Señor Moratinos insisted that “there is no negative attitude, at least from our side”. But the charge that the Socialists’ election was an act of “appeasement” to the terrorists who murdered 191 people in the Madrid bombings clearly still rankles. The Socialists promised in their election campaign to reverse Spanish government policy and withdraw support for the Iraq war and occupation. Opinion polls consistently showed that a huge majority of Spaniards opposed the war.

Six months on, Spain remains a target of Islamist extremists. Last week 17 people were arrested, accused of planning a big suicide bomb attack on the National Court.

“We became very angry when we were told that terrorists facilitated the Socialist victory,” he said. “We consider that an insult to our democracy and our citizens.

“On the contrary, the terrorists would have won if they had reinforced the policies of the previous Government. The terrorists were defeated because the people said: ‘Enough of this policy, we want to have a democratic change.’ The perception was manipulated so that it appeared that our position on Iraq was an appeasement of the War on Terror. But from the beginning we said: ‘Please don’t misunderstand us, the terrorists have their own agenda and we have our own and we must not play theirs.’ And that has been the main mistake. Britain and the USA went to war in Iraq because there were weapons of mass destruction, not because of bin Laden, who was in Afghanistan. So why mix up Iraq with that?

“The terrorists are still planning attacks in Spain because we are serious about our fight against terrorism. But we think that we have to use all means in the fight, and that includes our proposal of an alliance of civilisations, which means a different relationship with the Arab and Islamic world. We have to share information and intelligence and to better prepare our security forces, but more than that we have to cut the alibis and ideological resources of these people. Because you can arrest or kill thousands, but at the same time if there are 10,000 more who then join them, you don’t solve the problem.”

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