{"id":44756,"date":"2026-04-26T13:42:30","date_gmt":"2026-04-26T13:42:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/44756\/"},"modified":"2026-04-26T13:42:30","modified_gmt":"2026-04-26T13:42:30","slug":"spain-closes-its-airspace-to-us-planes-involved-in-iran-war-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/44756\/","title":{"rendered":"Spain closes its airspace to US planes involved in Iran war"},"content":{"rendered":"

MADRID (AP) \u2014 Spain closed its airspace to U.S. planes involved in the Iran war<\/a>, officials said Monday, in another step by Europe\u2019s loudest critic<\/a> of U.S. and Israeli military actions in the monthlong conflict.<\/p>\n

The country<\/a> earlier said that the U.S. couldn\u2019t use jointly operated military bases in the war, which Prime Minister Pedro S\u00e1nchez has described as illegal, reckless and unjust. Defense Minister Margarita Robles said that the same logic applied to the use of Spanish airspace.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis was made perfectly clear to the American military and forces from the very beginning. Therefore, neither the bases are authorized, nor, of course, is the use of Spanish airspace authorized for any actions related to the war in Iran,\u201d Robles told reporters, describing the conflict as \u201cprofoundly illegal and profoundly unjust.\u201d<\/p>\n

S\u00e1nchez has called on the U.S., Israel and Iran to end the war.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou cannot respond to one illegality with another, because that\u2019s how humanity\u2019s great disasters begin,\u201d he said earlier this month.<\/p>\n

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that Spain\u2019s leaders are \u201cbragging\u201d about cutting off its airspace, even as Washington has pledged to defend the NATO member. He said that the trans-Atlantic military alliance is useful for the U.S., because it \u201callows us to station troops and aircraft and weapons in parts of the world that we wouldn\u2019t normally have bases, and that includes in much of Europe.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBut if NATO is just about us defending Europe if they\u2019re attacked, but then denying us basing rights when we need them, that\u2019s not a very good arrangement,\u201d Rubio told Al Jazeera on Monday. \u201cThat\u2019s a hard one to stay engaged in and say this is good for the United States. So all of that is going to have to be reexamined.\u201d<\/p>\n

After S\u00e1nchez\u2019s government denied the U.S. use of the Rota and Mor\u00f3n military bases in southern Spain, U.S. President Donald Trump threatened to cut trade<\/a> with Madrid.<\/p>\n

Washington made trade threats last year, too, when S\u00e1nchez said that his government wouldn\u2019t increase its defense spending<\/a> in accordance with a deal agreed to by other NATO members following Trump\u2019s pressure.<\/p>\n

At the time, S\u00e1nchez\u2019s government said that Spain could meet its military commitments by spending 2.1% of gross domestic product on defense, instead of the 5% the rest of the 32-nation military alliance agreed upon.<\/p>\n

S\u00e1nchez also has been among the most vocal critics of Israel\u2019s actions during the war in Gaza, which has invited criticism from Israel\u2019s government on several occasions.<\/p>\n

No comment from NATO<\/p>\n

Spain\u2019s new decision against a NATO ally is rare, though not unprecedented. NATO didn\u2019t comment, referring questions to national authorities.<\/p>\n

\u201cNATO allies operate with a presumption of cooperation, but of course they retain sovereignty,\u2019’ said Daniel Baer, director of the Europe Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and a former U.S. ambassador to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.<\/p>\n

In an incident that strained trans-Atlantic ties, France and Italy blocked the U.S. military from using their airspace for an operation targeting Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi in 1986.<\/p>\n

In 2003, NATO member Turkey refused to allow American troops to use its territory to invade Iraq, though it did allow overflights. France and Germany firmly opposed that war, but allowed U.S. and British fighter jets to fly over their airspace.<\/p>\n

France\u2019s then foreign minister, Dominique de Villepin, despite a famed U.N. speech against the Bush administration\u2019s plans to invade, told the French parliament at the time that \u201cthere are practices between allies that exist that we must respect, including overflight rights.\u201d<\/p>\n

Europe between a rock and a hard place<\/p>\n

Spain\u2019s decision reflects broader concerns among traditional U.S. partners since Trump returned to office.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe relationship with the U.S. was already strained,\u201d Baer said. \u201cAllies can generally be counted on, but they can\u2019t be taken for granted.\u201d<\/p>\n

Still, he\u2019s doubtful that other European countries would follow Spain\u2019s example.<\/p>\n

\u201cMost Europeans are focused on keeping some measure of U.S. cooperation in supporting Ukraine, so I think it\u2019s less likely that others join, even as they voice concerns about a lack of clarity around U.S. strategic objectives in Iran,\u2019’ he said.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

Angela Charlton contributed to this report from Paris.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MADRID (AP) \u2014 Spain closed its airspace to U.S. planes involved in the Iran war, officials said Monday,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":44757,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[129],"tags":[13719,28358,12,1665,1800,4217,34,197,12164,186,1761,16358,2507,396,3446,304,51,305,5172,3773,4128,1194,52],"class_list":{"0":"post-44756","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-pedro-sanchez","8":"tag-daniel-baer","9":"tag-dominique-de-villepin","10":"tag-donald-trump","11":"tag-general-news","12":"tag-george-w-bush","13":"tag-government-and-politics","14":"tag-iran","15":"tag-iran-war","16":"tag-israel-government","17":"tag-marco-rubio","18":"tag-margarita-robles","19":"tag-mideast-wars","20":"tag-military-and-defense","21":"tag-nato","22":"tag-north-atlantic-treaty-organization","23":"tag-pedro-sanchez","24":"tag-politics","25":"tag-spain","26":"tag-spain-government","27":"tag-united-states-government","28":"tag-war-and-unrest","29":"tag-washington-news","30":"tag-world-news"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@people\/116471302878522879","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44756","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44756"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44756\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/44757"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44756"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44756"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44756"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}