The US assures that the negotiations for an additional cleaning of Palomares "will resume soon"

The North American Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, has assured this Wednesday that the negotiations with Spain to proceed with an additional cleaning of the lands that were contaminated by the accident in Palomares (Almería) in 1966 “will resume soon”, without offering deadlines.

This question has been one of those that he has addressed with the Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, in the meeting that both have held in Washington and that has served as preparation for the meeting this Friday at the White House between the president of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, and the US president, Joe Biden.

Blinken has recognized the “importance” of this issue and has recalled that the United States has already carried out cleanup work in the area affected by the four thermonuclear bombs dropped by one of the two US planes that collided on this Almería district almost six years ago. decades.

Thus, he has announced that “negotiations to carry out additional cleaning efforts will resume soon”, although he has not specified when, while at the same time he has assured the willingness of the United States to address this issue with Spain.

For his part, Albares has valued precisely the willingness of both parties to dialogue to solve a long-standing problem such as the contamination of Palomares. The minister stressed that it is “a complex issue” and that “technical issues” still need to be resolved before a final decision can be made.

The technical aspects, he has defended, “should be discussed at a technical level” and not a political one, and once this happens, the phases can be established to proceed with the cleanup of the contaminated land and the transfer of these lands to the United States, he has pointed out, without want to clarify if this could happen before the end of this year.

The question of Palomares will be one of those that Sánchez and Biden will address this Friday, according to Moncloa, who has not wanted to launch the bells on a possible agreement as a result of the appointment either.. However, government sources have acknowledged that there has been progress in recent months and have trusted that the two presidents can give a “push” to the matter.

The declaration of intent of 2015

The Government sent last March, through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, a formal request to the Biden Administration to proceed with the removal of the contaminated land in accordance with a declaration of intent reached in 2015 with Mariano Rajoy in Moncloa and Barack Obama in the White House.

In October 2015, the then Secretary of State, John Kerry, and the Foreign Minister, José Manuel García-Margallo, signed a declaration of intent in Madrid in which both countries committed to a “major rehabilitation” of the area around Palomares. and to undertake the transfer of contaminated soil to a “proper location” in the United States.

Despite this agreement, in these years there has been no progress, which led the current government to resume it and formally ask Washington to comply with what was agreed at that time.. Although Blinken has expressed the willingness of the United States to address the matter, it remains to be seen if it will be done in accordance with what was already agreed upon at the time.

In that document, Spain expressed its desire for “greater rehabilitation of the Palomares environment” while the United States expressed its desire to “provide the necessary assistance to achieve this objective.”. To do this, both governments had to “negotiate a binding agreement to establish a cooperative effort” for said rehabilitation and agreed to “the deposit of contaminated land in a suitable location in the United States.”