The complexity of the Gibraltar question, then and now

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 Monday, October 25, 2021 - 08:50

• Article BY JOE GARCIA in THE WORLD TODAY - Journal of the Royal Institute of International Affairs - November 1972:
When the Foreign Secretary, Sir Alec Douglas-Home, and his Spanish counterpart, Señor Lopez Bravo, meet in Madrid at the end of November, it will be their third attempt this year at establishing common ground in the dispute over Gibraltar.


The first two meetings—in Madrid in March and in London in July—produced no narrowing of fundamental differences, al-though it is true that a greater understanding of each other's point of view has emerged.
The two ministers are in no doubt about the complexity of the question, involving as it does the conflicting principles of territorial integrity and self-determination; they agree that a solution cannot be found in a matter of months to a problem which has been disputed by Britain and Spain ever since an Anglo-Dutch fleet captured the Rock in 1704.

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