After the Minister of Defense, Margarita Robles, on Friday gave a knock on the door – apparently definitive – to Spain’s participation in military missions to protect commercial maritime transport from the attacks of the Houthi rebels in Yemen, yesterday the President of the Central Government he was willing to “study” the proposal of the United States to send Spanish liaison officers to the operation led by Washington.
According to La Vanguardia, the Administration of Joe Biden transferred to the Government of Pedro Sánchez – as to other European partners – the desire that its Guardian mission should, in some way, also have the Spanish firm. The intention of the United States is to give political scope to the intervention with the presence of liaison officers with different badges. In fact, last week’s action along with the United Kingdom against Houthi militia positions was also signed by Canada, Australia, the Netherlands and Bahrain, despite the fact that they have only contributed liaison officers to the Central Command of the United States.
And, regarding the request, according to the answer that the President of the Central Government gave yesterday to the microphones of Rádio Nacional de España, he has not been told “no” in the United States. “We will now study the proposal they make to us”, literally said the head of the Executive, who again used the argument that Spain currently already has around 3,000 soldiers deployed abroad in missions under the umbrella of NATO , the EU or the United Nations.
“We are present, we are a reliable partner, we are a loyal partner”, he remarked with the same words used by the head of Defense during all the controversy related to the participation in the mission after the name of Spain appeared in a first list distributed by the United States. Sánchez remarked that he would not oppose the eventual operation being prepared by the European Union – with warships – to guarantee navigability in the face of threats from the Houthis. A new mission because the Government was opposed to converting the Atalanta operation, which now leads Spain in the Indian Ocean in the fight against piracy. It has been the excuse used these weeks to explain the Spanish veto to the expansion of Atalanta so that it could operate in the Red Sea.
Despite the fact that Robles verbalized a few days ago that the United States has not pressured Spain, the head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the United States, General Charles Brown, addressed the issue with the Spanish counterpart, the head of State Major of the Defense (Jemad), Admiral Teodoro López Calderón, Monday of last week. Defense denied that this issue was discussed in the call, although the Pentagon made it clear in a public statement.
When it seemed that the matter was closed, the president opened the door. Now it’s your turn to move the tile. He will have occasion to study it. The situation in the Red Sea will be one of the topics that will surely arise in the closed-door meeting that he has been invited to participate in tomorrow in the framework of the Davos Forum, where the question of stability and security in the Near East.
Twenty political leaders and experts have been invited to this meeting, which will be chaired by the president of the World Economic Forum, Borge Brende. According to Moncloa, they include the Belgian Prime Minister, Alexander De Croo, with whom Sánchez visited Israel, Palestine and Egypt at the end of November, as well as the Foreign Ministers of the United Kingdom, the ‘ Saudi Arabia or Oman, among others.
The central government has explained that the president wanted to be at the meeting because of the importance of the issue and because he is interested in being able to share his vision regarding the conflict, listen to the points of view of other leaders and analyze the perspectives of future
