SECRETARY BLINKEN: Well, good afternoon, everyone. It's really wonderful to have my friend, the foreign minister, back at the State Department. José Manuel, welcome. It's very good to have you.
As always, with such a close ally and friend, there is no shortage of important issues that we're tackling together. And the conversation that we had today, not surprisingly, reflected that. We covered a lot of territory together, and let me just share some of the important points.
One of the areas we discussed was deepening our cooperation in the Western Hemisphere. Spain has long invested in expanding economic opportunity for people across the region, and it's a key partner in supporting implementation of the Los Angeles Declaration on Migration and Protection, which brings a regional approach to promoting safe, orderly, humane, and regular migration. We are grateful for Spain's commitment to work with us on these Regional Processing Centers that we're establishing, which will expand access to people in the Americas who seek safe and legal migration options to come to the United States and potentially to Spain.
These innovative centers will allow people to stay in their own countries and determine their eligibility for lawful pathways to the United States, making them less likely to undertake the dangerous and costly journey to the border to seek asylum. And the centers will be a referral point for humanitarian refugee protections in other countries, including Spain. Spain has already received hundreds of thousands of migrants from Latin America and the Caribbean. It's committed to increase the number of people that it accepts from the region. Madrid recently created an innovative new pathway itself that will work with the private sector to match the skills of people seeking protection with the needs of Spanish businesses.
I also thanked José Manuel for Madrid's unwavering support and partnership with and for Ukraine as it defends its people and its territory against Russia's brutal war of aggression. Spain's assistance has come in all forms: robust military aid, including the recent revision of Leopard 2 tanks; air defense systems; ammunition; humanitarian aid, including ambulances specially equipped to tend to the needs of women and girls; and of course, the generosity of the Spanish people, who have now welcomed more than 173,000 displaced Ukrainians into their communities.
Spain has made clear that marshaling ongoing support for Ukraine - and for the principles at the heart of the United Nations Charter, including respect for a nation's sovereignty, territorial independence - will be a central focus of its upcoming presidency of the Council of the European Union. This is just one of the many ways that Spain is demonstrating leadership in rallying allies and partners around our shared interests and shared values.
Spain has also played a key role in shaping the Strategic Concept that we and our allies adopted at the Madrid Summit of NATO that sets out a vision for strengthening transatlantic security in the face of unprecedented challenges. And Madrid has led by example in delivering on the commitments we made in deploying additional troops to bolster NATO's eastern flank, to strengthen the defenses of our Alliance.
We also discussed how to strengthen our longstanding efforts to defend and promote human rights. And to that end, we're very pleased, as we just did, to welcome Spain to the Global Equality Fund, a partnership between governments and the private sector to support those on the front lines of advancing the human rights of the LGBTQI community and people around the world.
With José Manuel's signature, Spain becomes now the 18th government to join this effort, which has dedicated over $100 million to civil society organizations and human rights defenders in more than 100 countries. Every year, that support takes the form of training and tools that make local advocates safer and more effective, and emergency assistance and legal aid to human rights defenders and LGBTQI+ persons who face violence and abuse because of who they are, who they love, or what they do. Our efforts are helping to change the views of individuals and communities, and chipping away at enduring prejudice and abuse. We will be even stronger with Spain as a partner.
We also touched upon a number of other important issues of mutual concern, including shared concern about the situation in the Sahel and the work we can do there together to help stabilize countries that are in very difficult situations. We engaged on a number of issues relating to Spain's upcoming presidency of the European Union. And of course, we discussed how we can build on our cooperation across all of these priorities and many others when President Biden hosts President Sánchez at the White House later this week.
This includes accelerating our joint efforts to cut carbon emissions and increase energy security, expanding inclusive economic opportunities, fostering entrepreneurship, and deepening our educational exchanges and scientific collaboration - something we spent some time discussing today - all priorities that will benefit the people of our nations and people around the world. With that, José Manuel, the floor is yours.
FOREIGN MINISTER ALBARES: (Via interpreter) First of all, I would like to thank Tony Blinken for his hospitality and warmth during this trip to Washington. The Secretary of State is a good friend with whom I have had several meetings already, and these meetings have always been extremely fruitful for the relationship between our two countries. Spain and the U.S. share values and interests, such as the fight against climate change, preserving the environment, defending democracy and human rights. And on the international stage, we defend an international rule-based order and we work together on this within NATO, the G20, the UN, organizations in which we share the defense of these common values. These are the foundations upon which our relationship is based, and we would like to continue to build upon this to create stronger ties in the future.
In May, we signed the Madrid Declaration. This was the first U.S.-Spain declaration signed in two decades, which has strengthened our bilateral relationship even more in many areas. And one year later, the excellent state of our bilateral relationship is shown with the meeting that we just had and the meeting that our president of government will hold with President Biden this Friday.
This bilateral relationship is based on many ties: our businesses, which have a significant presence in both countries; our universities, who cooperate very closely; and we are also united by the strengths of our languages. We have talked about many of these issues, areas of cooperation today - our defense cooperation, our migration agreement via which Spain and the U.S. will work together in order to promote safe, humane, orderly, and regular migration from Latin American countries. We discussed Palomares as well as the renewal of the Scientific Cooperation Agreement to continue to promote working together with NASA, especially the Artemis program. We just signed an MOU to work together in one additional area: protecting the human rights of LGBTQI people through the world Equality Forum.
We unfortunately for many months have done - we've talked about the unjust, illegal war against Ukraine, and we talked about the transatlantic ties that tie the U.S. and Europe. Regarding the situation in Ukraine, I have discussed with Secretary Blinken the unconditional support of Spain as long as necessary with that country. We support Ukraine in its defense against the violation of its territorial sovereignty. This will - we will maintain this until peace comes once again to the borders of Ukraine and Ukraine is able to recover total sovereignty.
We also discussed how the Sahel is increasingly - has increasing geostrategic importance. We have discussed in NATO the threats that come from the southern flank, and we will continue to work to strengthen stability and development in the Sahel and coordinate our cooperation missions via AECID and USAID.
The transatlantic unity is key. It's always key, but it's even more so in moments like these - unity among Europeans, but also transatlantic unity with the U.S., which is a natural ally to Spain in many areas: health, energy, food security. In all of these areas, cooperation with the United States is vital.
We also spoke of the next EU summit during the presidency of Spain. This will be one of our priorities because we think that the entire Atlantic should become closer. There must be closer ties between our shores and we must create more stability and growth.
In sum, I would like to once again thank you for your hospitality, Tony. We will continue to work on these foundations of our relationship of friendship and cooperation, and that is why this week will culminate, then, with the meeting between President Biden and President Sánchez, which will show once again the excellent relationship that binds our countries.
