MADRID\u00a0\u2014\u00a0Spain has closed its airspace to U.S. planes involved in the Iran war, its defense minister said Monday, marking another step in Madrid\u2019s opposition to the U.S. and Israel\u2019s military actions since they launched the war in Iran more than a month ago.<\/p>\n
The country earlier said the U.S. couldn\u2019t use jointly operated military bases in the conflict, which Spanish Prime Minister Pedro S\u00e1nchez has described as illegal, reckless and unjust.<\/p>\n
Defense Minister Margarita Robles said the same logic applied to the use of Spanish airspace in the conflict.<\/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, and she called the war in Iran \u201cprofoundly illegal and profoundly unjust.\u201d<\/p>\n
S\u00e1nchez, one of Europe\u2019s most prominent left-wing leaders and the continent\u2019s most outspoken critic of the conflict, called on the U.S., Israel and Iran to end the war, saying this month: \u201cYou cannot respond to one illegality with another, because that\u2019s how humanity\u2019s great disasters begin.\u201d<\/p>\n
After S\u00e1nchez\u2019s government denied the U.S. use of the Rota and Mor\u00f3n military bases in southern Spain, President Trump threatened to cut trade with Madrid.<\/p>\n
The U.S. made trade threats last year too when S\u00e1nchez said his government wouldn\u2019t increase its defense spending in accordance with one agreed to by other NATO members following Trump\u2019s pressure.<\/p>\n
At the time, S\u00e1nchez\u2019s government said 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 in the war in Gaza, which has invited criticism from Israel\u2019s government on several occasions.<\/p>\n
No comment from NATO<\/b><\/p>\n
Spain\u2019s new decision against a NATO ally is rare, though not unprecedented. NATO did not comment, referring questions to national authorities.<\/p>\n
In an incident that strained transatlantic ties, France and Italy blocked the U.S. military from using their airspace for an operation targeting Libyan leader Moammar Kadafi in 1986.<\/p>\n
In 2003, Turkey refused to allow U.S. 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 \u2014 despite a famed U.N. speech against the Bush administration\u2019s plans to invade \u2014 told Parliament at the time that \u2033there are practices between allies that exist that we must respect, including overflight rights.\u2033<\/p>\n
Naishadham writes for the Associated Press. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MADRID\u00a0\u2014\u00a0Spain has closed its airspace to U.S. planes involved in the Iran war, its defense minister said Monday,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":861101,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5312],"tags":[10281,18992,6178,245126,2000,299,1234,83163,837,839,245127,245128,1327,72144,104,245125,14833],"class_list":["post-861100","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-spain","tag-action","tag-airspace","tag-conflict","tag-defense-minister-margarita-robles","tag-eu","tag-europe","tag-government","tag-iran-war","tag-israel","tag-middle-east","tag-military-basis","tag-military-source","tag-monday","tag-sanchez","tag-spain","tag-u-s-plane","tag-use"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116320017196989870","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/861100","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=861100"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/861100\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/861101"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=861100"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=861100"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=861100"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}