US downplays Powell ‘stupid little island’ remark

WASHINGTON – The US State Department moved on Wednesday to downplay US Secretary of State Colin Powell’s offhand comment to an interviewer that the cause of a 2002 dispute between Spain and Morocco that nearly erupted into war was a “stupid little island”.

Spokesman Richard Boucher said the spat over the Mediterranean islet known as ‘Perejil’ in Spain and ‘Leila’ in Morocco – which was resolved after intense US mediation – had been taken seriously in Washington and particularly by Powell who spent days negotiating between Madrid and Rabat. “The island itself, as we all know, is pretty small and it’s just one characterisation of it, but the dispute itself we took very seriously,” he said.In an interview with GQ, Powell described the territory, the focus of the dispute, as “this little stupid island that I had to deal with about a year and a half ago” and then said it was “not even an island, it’s a rock”.The 14-hectare uninhabited rocky islet off the north African coast has been claimed by both Spain and Morocco for decades but the dispute reached fever pitch and the source of a military stand-off and diplomatic crisis in July 2002 when Moroccan troops landed there.- Nampa-AFP”The island itself, as we all know, is pretty small and it’s just one characterisation of it, but the dispute itself we took very seriously,” he said.In an interview with GQ, Powell described the territory, the focus of the dispute, as “this little stupid island that I had to deal with about a year and a half ago” and then said it was “not even an island, it’s a rock”.The 14-hectare uninhabited rocky islet off the north African coast has been claimed by both Spain and Morocco for decades but the dispute reached fever pitch and the source of a military stand-off and diplomatic crisis in July 2002 when Moroccan troops landed there.- Nampa-AFP