'We Don't Want Gibraltar Back,' Spanish King Said in 1983

King Juan Carlos told Britain that it was not in Spain's interest to take back Gibraltar as it would trigger claims from Morocco for Spanish territories, newly declassified documents from the 1980s show.

The king admitted in a private conversation with the then British ambassador to Madrid, Richard Parsons, that "it was not to the advantage of Spain to recover Gibraltar in the near future".

"If she did so, King Hassan would immediately reactivate the Moroccan claim of Ceuta and Melilla," Parsons said in a telegram he sent to the Foreign Office in London on September 7, 1983.

Ceuta and Melilla are Spanish territories in North Africa.

The king had made the statements "with a burst of his usual frankness", the ambassador said.

Details of the meeting were released last week as part of a raft of government papers declassified 30 years later under secrecy laws.

At the time of the meeting, Spain was negotiating its entry into what was then the European Economic Community (EEC), the forerunner of the European Union.

The border between Spain and British-held Gibraltar was shut in 1969 by the Franco regime and only partially opened in 1982. Spain opened the border completely in 1985, a year before it joined the EEC.

According to the telegram, the king "accepted that the opinions of the (Gibraltarian) population must be respected" in the debate over its future -- putting him at odds with the Spanish government's position which was to press for direct talks between London and Madrid.

The king also agreed that "Gibraltar was an emotional issue and we must be sensitive towards public opinion and to the demands of national interests", Parsons wrote.

The telegram has been released amid a flare-up between Britain and Spain over Gibraltar, sparked by Gibraltar's construction of an artificial reef in waters off the rocky outcrop in July last year.

Spain then imposed extra border checks on cars trying to enter Gibraltar, causing long tailbacks.

Amid a series of spats since then, Britain formally protested to Madrid in November after Spanish officials opened British diplomatic bags.