Britain to complain about incursion of Spanish Navy vessel into waters off Gibraltar

The British government will lodge a high-level “formal protest” with Spain over what it claimed was the incursion of a Spanish Navy vessel on Tuesday into waters off the coast of Gibraltar during a military exercise, a UK Foreign Office spokesman said Wednesday.

In response, the Spanish Defense Ministry denied there had been “any incident” between a Spanish Navy patrol vessel and the Royal Navy in the area. The patrol boat “was in Spanish waters, and therefore, there has been no incident,” the ministry said in a statement.

According to press reports in Gibraltar and Britain, the Spanish vessel Vigía on Tuesday evening entered the waters off the disputed British colony, interrupting a military exercise by British parachutists jumping into the sea.

A Spanish Foreign Ministry spokesman said Wednesday that as of this evening it had yet to receive any complaint from London.