MADRID, Spain (AFP) — The next round of talks between Britain, Spain and Gibraltar will be held in the British overseas territory next week, the Spanish foreign ministry said Thursday.
The third meeting of the "Trilateral Forum of Dialogue on Gibraltar" will take place in Gibraltar on October 29-31 at a "non-ministerial level," it said.
The forum was set up in 2004 to discuss issues related to the rocky outcrop at the foot of Spain. The first meeting was held in the southern Spanish city of Cordoba in 2006, and the second in London in July.
"The (Gibraltar) meeting will focus on the development of the aims of the new areas of cooperation that were agreed upon in the ministerial meeting in London in July," the ministry said in a statement.
It will also "review the application of the understandings reached at the ministerial meeting in Cordoba."
At the London meeting, Britain's Foreign Secretary David Miliband, his Spanish counterpart Miguel Angel Moratinos and Gibraltar's Chief Minister Peter Caruana agreed to work more closely in six areas. They include the environment, financial services and tax.
There was also what Miliband called a "new drive" to cooperate on judicial, customs and policing, including on illegal immigration, maritime issues, visa-related matters and education.
In Cordoba, the three sides reached an agreement on the joint use of Gibraltar's airport, which led to the first direct flights from Madrid to the British territory, and on the payment of pensions to Spanish workers in the territory.
Spanish flag carrier Iberia last month suspended the last regularly scheduled service from Madrid for what it said were economic reasons.
Spain ceded Gibraltar to Britain in 1713 under the Treaty of Utrecht but has retained a constitutional claim should Britain renounce sovereignty.
The territory, which lies off southern Spain at the entrance to the Mediterranean Sea, has long been of military interest.
Now a haven for tourism, shipping and offshore banking because of its favourable tax laws, its people overwhelmingly rejected an Anglo-Spanish proposal for co-sovereignty in a referendum in 2002.
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