Gibraltar Chief Warns Against Compromise Over Sovereignty

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Monday, November 26, 2001

Gibraltar Chief Warns Against Compromise Over Sovereignty

Gibraltar's chief minister Peter Caruana on Sunday ruled out any compromise over sovereignty of the British colony and predicted its 30,000 inhabitants would vote no in a referendum proposing that Britain share control of its colony with Spain. "There is more chance of hell freezing over than the people of Gibraltar accepting Spanish sovereignty in any shape or form," Caruana told Britain's Sky News television.

The comments were made after British and Spanish foreign ministers pledged last week to resolve their centuries-old dispute over Gibraltar by next September.

The pledges fueled fears among Gibraltarians that London was ready to offer Spain a role in governing the rocky outcrop on its southern tip.

Britain repeatedly insisted that any deal would be tested by the people of Gibraltar through a referendum.

But Caruana said the British pledge was accompanied by "threats " that Gibraltar would be left behind if it spurned an accord.

"Our rights to decide our own future and to remain British, which is what we would choose to do, are not limited to accepting what London and Madrid bilaterally hatch between them, and then paying the consequences of not accepting that deal," he said.

Britain's 300-year control of Gibraltar has been a persistent irritant in its relations with Spain, which said last week it would neither recognize Gibraltar's right to self-determination nor give up its own sovereignty claim.

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