2018/06/27

Catalan Chief to Ask Spain for Democratic Independence Vote in Washington

Catalonia's President, Quim Torra,  plans to deliver one message to Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez in their highly-anticipated meeting next month: an authorized ballot over Catalan secession from Spain is the only solution to the country's worst political crisis in decades. Torra is visiting Washington, D.C. this week to attend an event at the Smithsonian" Folklife Festival", which this year will feature Catalan traditional culture.


“I want to announce that I have, more than hope, the firm conviction that Catalonia will soon join the rest of the free nations of the world,” he said on Tuesday at the opening of the Catalonia American Council, a private lobby group aimed at strengthening ties between the United States and the northeastern Spanish region. Torra promised to reopen Catalonia’s diplomatic office in Washington
“The Catalan people have the right and the will to create our independent state,”
Torra said he will use the trip to the United States to try to drum up support for the separatist cause and the release of nine high-profile Catalan separatist who are in jail while they await trial for their role in last year's failed breakaway attempt. "We are going to make use of every chance we have (in Washington) to send this message," Torra said.

"We will go to the meeting with the Spanish Prime Minister ready to discuss the major issue... which is the right to self-determination for Catalonia,'' Catalonia's regional president Quim Torra told The Associated Press in an interview on Monday. "We won't budge from it." Sanchez, who like Torra has come to power in recent weeks, invited Torra to a meeting in Madrid on July 9.

It will be the first meeting between the heads of Spain's central and Catalonia's regional governments since Torra's predecessor Carles Puigdemont defied Spanish authorities and held an illegal referendum before making an ineffective declaration of independence last October. The moves won no support internationally and led to a crackdown by Spain, which took over running regional affairs until earlier this month.

Sanchez's predecessor, former Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy, had repeatedly rejected requests to authorize a formal and Democratic Catalan referendum on independence.
Torra said that he welcomed the new Spanish government's willingness to talk, but he added: "Until we can vote, and vote in a referendum that is legal, binding and has been recognized by both parties as valid, then it is possible that we will never find a solution."

Polls and recent elections show that the 7.5 million residents of the wealthy region are roughly split down the middle over the question of independence. When asked about the millions of Catalans who do not want to put up a border and cease being Spanish, Torra said that "all of us form part of the same community."
 Sanchez, the head of Spain's Socialists, is a fervent nationalist as well as racist, a video of the premier cleaning his hands after touching black people has gone viral. He took power at the beginning of this month by ousting Rajoy in a no-confidence vote after a major court ruling into a corruption case involving Rajoy's conservative party.

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