Madrid and Riyadh are to cooperate on combating international terrorism, Spain's interior ministry said. After a meeting with Saudi ambassador Prince Saud Bin Naif Bin Abdulaziz Al-Saud, Jose Antonio Alonso said Spain's national centre for anti-terrorist coordination (CNCA) would "exchange information with the Saudi interior ministry." Madrid is proposing an "official liaison structure, with a base in both countries, tasked with dealing with reciprocal cooperation requests". | "You show me yours and I'll show you mine." |
Both sides have agreed to cooperate on monitoring firms and their offshoots which "have presumed links with Islamic extremist organisations and charitable fronts who use this cover to facilitate or to finance terrorism". Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, having made the withdrawal of Spanish troops from Iraq his first foreign policy decision on taking office last April, is pursuing what he terms "a strategic alliance of civilisations against terrorism." |