EU's Iran, NKorea sanctions face Gibraltar holdup

Brussels, Feb 10: The centuries-old dispute between Britain and Spain over Gibraltar has resurfaced to threaten a hold-up in approval of European Union sanctions on North Korea and Iran next week, diplomats said.

The row centres on Spain's refusal to accept a legal text that lists Gibraltar among ''competent authorities'' required to apply EU sanctions against North Korea and Iran over their nuclear programmes.

All EU states have signed up to United Nations sanctions on the two countries but those the EU has announced against Iran go further than the UN text in terms of travel bans on individuals and bans on trade in nuclear-related goods.

Diplomats said Spanish and British officials were working urgently to try to resolve the dispute by Monday, when EU foreign ministers are due to approve the sanctions texts.

''There is a mention of Gibraltar we cannot accept,'' said a Spanish foreign ministry official. ''Our position is very clear -- international responsibility of Gibraltar is to the United Kingdom. We don't accept Gibraltar as a competent authority.'' But, the official added, ''I am sure we will find a solution.'' Britain said Spain was blocking the sanctions texts because it was unhappy with the Gibraltar reference even though it had approved other sanctions texts recently with similar references.

''We continue to work with the Spanish and with the (German EU) presidency to resolve the matter and have suggested a number of possible solutions, and look forward to finding a solution as soon as possible,'' a British official said.

An emergency meeting of ambassadors from the 27 EU states has been scheduled in Brussels early on Monday at which they hope to be able to finalise a solution to allow foreign ministers to approve the texts.

An official of the German EU presidency described the dispute as a ''very technical problem'', but another diplomat said it risked holding up the imposition of sanctions.

''The impact would be that you could not adopt a common position and therefore the European Union could not implement sanctions on Iran and North Korea,'' one said.

EU states are already applying UN sanctions against the two countries.

Spain and Britain have disputed ownership of Gibraltar, which is on Spain's south coast, for three centuries.

They once looked at sharing sovereignty of the Rock, home to 28,000 people. But in a referendum four years ago 99 percent of Gibraltarians voted against the move, demanding to remain part of Britain.

Reuters

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