Spain 'made no concessions' to Morocco over Haidar: minister

(BRUSSELS) - Spain made no concessions to Morocco in negotiating the return of a hunger-striking Western Sahara activist to her home, the country's foreign minister said Friday.

Expressing his satisfaction at the return of Aminatou Haidar to the Morocccan territory, Miguel Angel Moratinos told reporters: "It's something we're all pleased to see. It's been a long fight for her.

"We've always been fighting in the Spanish government to make sure the return could take place as quickly as possible, subject to base guarantees available," he said.

"And we did that, we made no concessions," added Moratinos, who was in Brussels to outline the priorities of Spain's six-month term at the helm of the European Union starting on January 1.

"This is a good example of how negotiations should be conducted to resolve an issue that is particularly complicated," he added.

Haidar returned to the disputed Moroccan territory of Western Sahara Friday more than a month after launching a hunger strike at a Spanish airport, which led to a standoff with Rabat.

The 42-year-old mother of two launched her protest on November 16 at Lanzarote airport, in Spain's Canary Islands, days after Moroccan authorities denied entry to her native Western Sahara.

She had been returning from a trip to the United States, where she had received the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Prize in New York.

As her health deteriorated and the affair turned into a stalemate between Madrid and Rabat, French President Nicolas Sarkozy intervened this week, asking Morocco to give Haidar a passport, the French presidency said late Thursday.

Haidar, who campaigns for the independence of Western Sahara, a former Spanish colony annexed by Morocco in 1975, was released late Thursday from hospital in Lanzarote and taken to the airport for the flight home.