2007 Morocco–Spain diplomatic conflict Government of Spain announced the visit of King Juan Carlos I and Queen Sofia to Ceuta and Melilla from 5 and 6 November. The day before, the Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, had told that fact to the opposition leader Mariano Rajoy during an official ceremony, which Rajoy welcomed. The King of Spain had not visited Ceuta and Melilla in his reign. The most immediate antecedent of the stay of King Juan Carlos I in these cities dates back to 1970, when he undertook a visit to Ceuta in his capacity as Prince of Asturias on the occasion
José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero to be illegal and was opposed to the very concept of preemptive war. On 26 May 2003 a Yakovlev Yak-42 plane carrying Spanish soldiers home from Afghanistan crashed in Turkey. The plane had been hired by an agency of NATO. Zapatero blamed Aznar and his government for neglecting aspects like the plane insurance or safety. Further, Aznar had rejected calls for a full inquiry into the crash. After the 2004 March elections it was proven that there had been serious irregularities in the identification of the corpses resulting in a high number of mistakes. Concerning the European Constitution, Zapatero criticized