José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero Carme Chacon made the announcement saying, "The mission has been completed and it is time to return home." Asked if the United States shared that assessment, Wood said, "Not at all." Later on, Vice President Joe Biden stated that the American relationship with Spain goes beyond "whatever disagreement we may have over Kosovo". Zapatero's predecessor, José María Aznar, defended a strong Atlanticist policy. Zapatero has downplayed that policy in favour of a pan-European one. He has also sponsored the idea of an Alliance of Civilizations which is co-sponsored by Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. In the writing of what
Carme Chacón Carme Chacón Carme Maria Chacón Piqueras (; March 13, 1971April 9, 2017) was a Spanish lawyer, lecturer and politician who was Minister of Defence from 2008 to 2011 in the cabinet led by Spanish Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero. Member of Spanish Socialist Worker's Party (PSOE) since 1994, she was elected member of the Parliament of Catalonia and Vice President of the Spanish Congress of Deputies, the lower house in the Spanish Parliament. In 2007, she entered the cabinet led by Spanish Prime Minister José Luís Rodríguez Zapatero as Minister of Housing. A year later, she became the first