British Foreign Secretary William Hague has raised Å“serious concerns” about what he called Spainâ„¢s deliberate delays to traffic entering and leaving Gibraltar with his ministry also lodging a protest with the Spanish ambassador in London.
Spanish border officers have apparently carried out lengthy searches of vehicles leaving the disputed British-held territory over the weekend, leading to delays of up to six hours in the traffic flow across the Gibraltar border with Spain.
Gibraltar government said the officers searched Å“practically every vehicle” describing the situation as Å“torture”.
“This torture has resulted in an ambulance being deployed to treat people with medical conditions,” it said in a statement.
Hague made the remark in a phone conversation with his Spanish counterpart Jose Garcia-Margallo.
“Our main concerns at the moment are restoring people’s basic right to freedom of movement, and we want to work towards a speedy solution that will help to ease the very difficult situation and humanitarian issues at the border and enable a return to normal operations,” a British Foreign Office spokesman said.
The ministry has also registered a protest with the Spanish embassy in London.
Gibraltar is one of the British Overseas Territories, which is on the UN list of areas waiting decolonization.
The territory, Britain seized from Spain in 1713, remains a bone of contention between the two European countries.
AMR/
Republished from: Press TV