Spain and Britain have agreed to restart consultations on Gibraltar to try to resolve the 300-year-old sovereignty dispute over the British colony on Spain's southern coast.
British Foreign Minister Jack Straw and his Spanish counterpart Mr Miguel Angel Moratinos said today the two countries would discuss setting up a new forum that would give Gibraltar a say in talks on its future.
Spain ceded the tiny rocky outcrop to Britain in the 1713 Treaty of Utrecht and has been trying to get it back ever since.
Gibraltar's Chief Minister Peter Caruana welcomed the new talks after having boycotted the previous round of Spanish-British negotiations in 2001 and 2002, when Gibraltar was only offered a seat as part of the British delegation.
"We look forward to the opportunity to engage in this process of cooperation and to participate in open-agenda, properly structured dialogue," said Mr Caruana, who ended three years of silence between Madrid and Gibraltar last month when he held informal talks with a senior diplomat.
Although the exact structure of the new forum has not yet been, agreed a planned "two countries, three voices" format should help avoid a repeat of the last round of talks. Spain and Britain reached a 2002 agreement on joint sovereignty, but it collapsed when Gibraltarian voters overwhelmingly rejected any role for Spain in their affairs in a non-binding referendum.
"The Spanish government wants .... to gain the confidence of Gibraltarian citizens because at the end of negotiations, recovering the territory alone would not be sufficient if we didn't win the friendship ... of the people," Mr Moratinos said.
The climate of negotiations changed when Socialists came to power in Spain in April after eight years of conservative rule. Spain has already earned some goodwill by agreeing to let regional authorities co-operate with Gibraltar on local projects while leaving the sovereignty issues aside.
Spain also lifted a ban on cruise ships going directly from the colony to Spanish ports and agreed to let Gibraltar-bound flights divert to Spanish airports in case of emergencies.