The Minister of Foreign Affairs, Arancha González Laya, has broken an unwritten tradition and staged this Thursday the first bilateral meeting between a head of Spanish diplomacy and the chief minister of Gibraltar. Within the visit she is making since Wednesday to La Línea and Campo de Gibraltar and La Línea de la Concepción, the minister has made a place in her agenda due to Fabian Picardo's request to hold a meeting.

The meeting, which could be controversial, has been sought insistently by Picardo since he met the minister's visit to the area. Diplomatic sources understand that the meeting can be interpreted as an acknowledgment by the Government of Spain to the sovereignty of Gibraltar. Something that sources of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs deny.

Until now, no Spanish Foreign Minister had held a solo meeting with the main person in charge of the Rock. Yes there were meetings with three, with the two foreign ministers, the Spanish and the British, and the chief minister of Gibraltar. It happened when Miguel Ángel Moratinos held this responsibility. The meetings of that trilateral forum were held in Córdoba in 2006, in London in 2008 and in Gibraltar in 2009.

Sources close to the minister explain that the meeting was "informal" and that "it was not part of the visit's agenda." The same sources detract diplomatic significance to the meeting, given the unsolved dispute over the Rock, since Spain does not renounce its sovereignty over the area.

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