Spain’s prime minister says his country is a trustworthy NATO ally after a report that the US considered expelling it over its refusal to support Middle East war operations.
CYPRUS: Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez on Friday stressed his country was a “reliable member” of NATO, after a report the United States was considering possibly trying to expel Spain over its refusal to support operations in the Middle East war.
The Reuters news agency cited an anonymous US official telling it that the Pentagon had outlined the expulsion option in an email looking at ways to punish NATO allies that steered clear of the US-Israeli war against Iran.
“Spain is a reliable member within NATO” which is fulfilling all its obligations, Sanchez told reporters in Cyprus, where he was attending an EU summit.
“As a result, I am absolutely not worried,” he said.
US President Donald Trump has repeatedly railed against NATO allies for refusing to join the war, saying he viewed it as a betrayal.
Some of them — France, Spain and Italy — did not allow US military aircraft deployed for the war to overfly their territories or to use bases. Britain initially also refused, but later allowed US flights from its bases for “defensive” missions in the conflict.
Trump also tried, in vain, to get European NATO members to send warships to the Strait of Hormuz, which Iran has effectively closed with military threats and attacks.
Washington’s expectation that NATO members’ facilities and territories should be available to the US without question has added to strains within the alliance, which Trump has taken to calling a “paper tiger”.
Sanchez added in Cyprus that “we don’t work on the basis of emails, we work off official documents and the position that the United States government has set out in this case”.
He added that his government’s stance was “absolute cooperation with allies, but always within the bounds of international law”.
NATO is to hold its next summit in Turkey on July 7-8.
