US-Spain relations to warm up with Condoleeza Rice visit

22 May 2007

WASHINGTON – Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will make a stop in Spain as part of a four-day European swing next week, the State Department said Monday.

“Every relationship has some bumps in the road, but you work through those in a respectful way and try to build up mutual understanding so you don’t talk past one another,” department spokesman Sean McCormack said of Rice’s visit to Madrid.

The move comes three years after Spain angered the George W. Bush administration by pulling its troops out of Iraq.

The spokesman said that Rice will spend only a few hours in the Spanish capital on June 1, meeting with counterpart Miguel Angel Moratinos and other unnamed officials.

“So this is just an opportunity for her to sit down with Foreign Minister Moratinos, as well as other members of the Spanish government, to talk through those issues,” McCormack said.

Rice’s visit will be the first made by a top Bush administration official to Spain since the coming to power of Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero in April 2004.

Since Zapatero – fulfilling a campaign promise – announced two days after taking over as premier that he would withdraw Spanish troops from Iraq, relations between the two governments have been chilly.

The State Department announcement said that Rice will attend the May 30 meeting of foreign ministers of the G-8 nations outside Berlin.

On the following day, she will travel to Vienna to participate in a round table on peace and security in the Middle East before winding up her European tour in Madrid. EFE

[Copyright EFE with Expatica]

Subject: Spanish news