The syrian city of dera zora twenty people died when suspected russian planes bombed a River Crossing outside the city and ten others were killed in as strike to the east near the border with iraq next inside story. Catalonia as leader has signed a symbolic declaration of independence from spain colors which the mole is now calling for talks with madrid but the Spanish Government is refusing to negotiate with its worst political crisis in decades now only stalled not resolved whats the way forward for the five country this is inside story. Hello again im james the leaders of spains council on your region are calling on the world to recognize it as an independent and sovereign state but not just yet late tuesday the catalonian president put its independence bid on hold by suspending the declaration he says he wants to try to negotiate with the Spanish Government first but the government in madrid says that spains unity is guaranteed by the constitution and cannot be questioned so with the two sides on such extreme ends of the issue can they find a middle ground well get to our guests in a moment but first jonah whole report from barcelona. He arrived at the Parliament Building bristling with expectation a heavy Police Presence hinted at the weighty announcement to come but carlos demobbed president of catalonia is Regional Government stopped short of a full declaration of independence. As president its my responsibility to declare that catalonia should become an independent state in the shape of a public. Should become the words greeted with rounding applause in the chamber before the independent state party was put on hold. We asked the parliament to suspend any effects of the declaration of independence so that we can have dialogue and so that we can find the necessary solution we need to lower tensions and show our will and commitment to meet the demands of the catalan people the reaction in madrid came swiftly and this course not kato your present day that the speech that the catalan president has made today is a speech by a person who doesnt know where he is where hes going or with whom he wants to go the government cannot accept that the catalan referendum be validated because its been suspended by the Constitutional Court. Having consistently refused to talk one centrist politician suggested the time may have come for the government to compromise i think the better way they can solve the problem is with that negotiation some kind as i said of mediation. And resources fast alone or the faithful who gathered to watch the speech on a big screens left deflated but accepted that all was not lost im happy that hes given some time in order for people to things we really dont understand whats the situation we can say what does it mean what the president just said so assigned declaration but independence deferred which demands speech stipulated no timeline for talks with the. The drama of catalonia is independence that is played out in this Parliament Building for nearly one hundred years isnt over yet jonah hill aljazeera barcelona. The catalans have been pushing for independence for a long time they say they have a distinct culture and language that merits its own state in twenty fifteen Regional Elections or catalan nationalists when a razor thin majority two parties formed a coalition partly based on the promise of holding a referendum within two years thats the vote that was held on october the first nine out of ten voters opted for independence but only about forty percent of the regions population actually came out to vote that was partially because of the violence that marred the election but polls before the vote suggested about sixty percent of catalans want reforms not secession lets bring in our panel to discuss all the issues from barcelona we have alfred bosch whos the leader of a Pro Independence e r c party in the Barcelona City Council from madrid tony roldan the economic spokesman for the sierra dardar narced party translated that means Citizens Party and from nottingham in the u. K. Simon to bo who is an assistant professor in the school of politics and International Relations at the university of nottingham welcome to you all alfred if i can start with you going back to the speech by your president the catalan president what were your thoughts when you heard his words particularly the words he said first today i assume a mandate for catalona catalonia to become an independent state in the form of a republic. I thought he was very clever in the first first place because he accepted the mandate of the people theres nothing else he could do this was a binding referendum and those of was a clear yes by ninety percent on the second hand he said he was open to negotiation so he offered the very last chance to the Spanish Government opening the door stretching out his hand and saying we will leave a couple of weeks for talks lets see if this works always take into account that democracy is the red line when were not going to surrender democracy because people voted and we have to heed to the call and the voice of the people can i ask you turney it must have been a different reaction listening to that speech from there in madrid. Quite quite differently i dont know if you can. Do a referendum weve got ninety percent of support to the u. S. And without any illegitimacy of any kind without any independent electoral board without any census that these controlled everything is biased towards ones i dont know maybe one side and weve got t. V. That is controlled by the national used but these so i dont think that that democracy at all democracy is being within the law and theyre what theyre got their own government decided to yes that it was a move but theres a bit of a show they decided to say first that they were going to declare independence and they said that finally they will not do it now but that we would follow in their r. B. C. Just in a few in a few more days keeping the blackmailing to the going on a minute im going to turn to your calling it blackmailing in a show but in the speech he said it was a gesture of responsibility to encourage dialogue is not a good thing. Yeah well. But when you come from such an increase and such a thread of your responses really bringing basically the country to the brink of collapse and fragmenting from anything i can tree without any democrat big. Security responsibility now i think hes made a step but after that step he signed the paper with all the brain dependence but this saying we did all this seventy two m. Piece of the got that im going to. Say that he was going to continue with that. One to negotiate with the government. It needs to be with an open door to negotiating not by your own rules and excluding any other identity that is not independent so. I dont think this is really a constructive move i think that we need to open that bit of dialogue and to manage to take them towards the Legal Framework that we all this pundits have studies would use which is basically the constitution and within the constitution we can do anything and you can vote you can do a Regional Election and vote where everyone can participate would there is no bias. In the organization where there is actually transparency and then everyone can express feeling what they want thats democracy not what but i Independence Movement as organized so i mean can you give us some context how historic is this moment right now or how historic could it be i mean i think this is a very historic moment nothing like this ever happened before in spain certainly not under the current democratic regime and in there have been past experiences. During the early one nine hundred thirty s. Under the second republic when there were such movements towards instability stablish meant of an independent state and they brought in the country into a civil war and into a military dictatorship so the historical precedent for these events is certainly not a very positive one and certainly not a very encouraging one. And. At the moment i think possibly the strongest challenge to the spanish constitution. And to the spanish political system that has ever been mounted so i think its an important very grave historic moment that being said it looks like. Democracy. And dialogue might win the day so i think well have to see exactly what the repercussions are. I do think that the gesture coming from carlos was a clever one he managed to separate on the one hand what happened with the referendum and what the result of that referendum was from the potentially very serious constitutional implications of the outcome and he has put that on hold in order to create space for a dialogue albeit with. The potential for a threat further down the line but if that brings some kind of deescalation and some kind of mollifying of the attitudes of the spanish spanish Central Government then at least theyll be walking towards each other rather than away from each other alfred in barcelona right i hope maybe you can give us an idea of what the mood was that like there when this announcement was made because you have a Big Coalition of people who are on your side there are some im sure who like the first bit im declaring independence but didnt like the second bit im suspending it we saw some pictures of some somewhat disappointed people there was there a feeling among some of the muse ment or even betrayal well you see theres all kinds of reactions and of course theres lots of people who felt that they had to pull their fingers and they kind of. Skate but but its still there i mean the declaration was done was signed and. Most people here understand that weve got to give a break to our souls to the people and to possible negotiators and to the International Community weve been experiencing this for seven years now with no possibility to get this down to dialogue with the Spanish Government now that we issued this declaration we have the whole International Community pressing for talks so its a good moment to do it plus the fact that you must realize its not easy its not easy to stretch your hand to somebody who was zoraida ordering the police to beat up your grannies and to beat up elderly people and ordinary citizens who just wanted to vote its not easy at all people who were. Detaining high officials just for organizing a vote but still i think put the offer and the Catalan Governments offer has been very generous and has been very brave in the sense that we must do this because we must give a chance to talks and to negotiation well the reaction in madrid was a. Cabinet meeting followed by a News Conference from from the Prime Minister this is what he had to say it. Is time when you are now weve held a Cabinet Meeting and weve decided the Catalan Government in must confirm whether or not they have declared independence regardless of whether its going to take effect or not this is a requirement necessary before any other measures can be taken by the government including invoking article one fifty five. Well tony that was the comment that came from Prime Minister roy in a way weve had two announcements coming in it seems both men have slightly pulled their punches would you agree. Yeah well first of all i would say that the announcement of the whole you are providing a bit more and more time for theyve gotten government to come back to a Legal Framework where we can dog and not involving the view of nationalities and basically a populist government that basically has done very similar construction of a narrative than what we saw in but actually that was what weve seen what weve seen by other populist governments and you would have i think its also a very brave step in the sense that look im not going to do what any other country. Would do that has a constitution and that the constitution says that this over and to be used for of the for the whole of the country and of what region. He made a brave a step of saying look give you. A bit more dime show your comeback you cancel this unilateral movement that will only bring you not only what were already seeing which is all these companies and businesses beating the living dead along the already more and more than thirty all the big ones up left and were not going to allow that do that latterly without the majority and this i see that because they talk about us and undermine democracy and we had twenty fifteen an election where theyve grown up in this movement. Took it as a sort of of. A referendum in the sense that it was let me see that and and they lost and they didnt get the majority of the both right as still theyre going ahead with this with the house giving a bit more time i think its good and they should cancel even that but i will grayson that will not leave anywhere its obvious that it will leave only basically to getting out of the European Union and then doc and we can talk about everything within the law we can govern rules that make us all equal and where all that all the rights are respected not only the rights of the april independence people who get the money well a lot of us journalists have been looking. This this is a the official english translation of the spanish constitution and in particular to section one five five about part of the constitution has never been used before it says if a selfgoverning community does not fulfill the obligation is imposed on it by the constitution or acts in a way that seriously prejudicial to the general interests of spain the government way following Senate Approval take all measures necessary to compel the community to meet said obligations simon some of called this the nuclear option. Yeah i mean this would be i think the automatic and natural reaction of the spanish Central Government to a unilateral declaration of independence to apply a proclamation of independence which is which is why the. Mariano rajoy for greater clarity he was wanting to find out whether or not they were going to pursue that option and if so he was going to follow by invoking article one five five this article is never been used in the. Spanish state or will told me this so far so its unclear exactly what would what would follow from it but it would probably follow is a suspension of the Catalan Parliament and the Catalan Government possibly with the arrest of the members of the cattle on government who made this this proclamation and it would be followed either by a fresh elections or by the imposition of direct rule over over the region so this is a very very serious measure to take as it would brigades parts of the. Principles of autonomy that govern the spanish constitution would lead to an end to the cats and on. Them of government ok in a moment for it im going to ask you how you would greet the imposition of that article but first tony perhaps you could expand for us on how you think this would work is it possible the will be in vote how likely is it how long would it take to take back control for example whats your view on that. Let me let me first just make a quick comment on as regards to the last comment made by a same one i disagree on one thing i think Everything Else was was right the people that cast suspended this of autonomy in get along the are not i mean this is not going to be through these articles has already been suspended by the cut on government aid there is a way to change the relationship with spain that these. Will be in that. In that startles of autonomy and you need two thirds of the government government of the governed by women to change their relationship with spain and these for Independence Movement is we with the majority but one is already declaring a unilateral declaration of independence for use of the allies how that really undemocratic any responsible is what what their government is doing having said that the one hundred fifty five has been somehow youve always been clear option look there are many ways to use that are going to need to present in every city is going to get into guns actually they are writing from the german constitution right. And i need offers many options one of them would be simply to suspend the parliament and go on an election really democratic election where everyone can say everyone going bald they all by december by the same rules and that should be i think the basic use of the day i dont think anybody wants to see any escalation of anything i dont see i think its absolutely. I will the im scared to reality to blame the government or anybody that these are union is. Whats violins or anything like that these is at the mcgrath big state and this is a very precisely because we have a constitution where we can all play. The rules and we can all express our opinions alfred whats your view of the imposition of the section one five five and what could happen because potentially people could be arrested i sympathize surely you could be arrested. Yeah of course but weve seen some of my Party Colleagues who have been arrested for much less than that for Something Like preparing a vote so we think that would be total onslaught it would be a huge mistake on the part of mr hoyer weve seen whenever royal has resorted to crackdown in the last few years in the last few days weve seen what the result has been that has only complicated things further and that has Brought International attention here so its really up to him i mean everyones to walk the way of turkey or of other countries which are constantly attacking their own democracy thats astroids we think it will be a huge mistake we favor rather talking negotiation and getting sitting around the table and talk about how in a democratic way devolving the issue to the people because the people have to decide and the bottom line here is that its not up to politicians in obscure office its not up to people shouting in the street its up to the ballot box to people voting consciously and be invited to vote we did that on a talk with the first and thats how things should be done in the ballot box let me just ask because i was i about one particular element to this our friends and that is the fact that you have your own police force in catalonia if this article was invoked they would supposedly report to madrid who would they actually take their orders from in your view. Well lets see are we talking about legal procedures or out we are we talking about the right of people to decide the bulbs if we talking about the first thing then perhaps perhaps they they would be submitted to the Spanish Police or to the Spanish Ministry of the interior and were talking about the right of people to decide about their own things in their own future obviously this police force belongs to the catalan people because theyre there for protecting peoples rights protecting the right of people to vote and to express themselves not to attack people when theyre voting ok thats only thats very early i see what you think should the only only here on money or any very element over it tony i see you shaking your head repeatedly. Yeah absolutely if you were with us lets say one of the proofs of the incredible centralized country. That we have in spain is precisely that catalonia not only they manage all their Health System all their patients use them. The reasons. They also they also manage their own police we are one of the most federalized states in the world and get along is one of the regions of the world with more out on i mean right i understand that some people for whatever reason this bite that we are in the world of globalization and that we need to leave us borders right and that includes them and we need to accept that leaving a multicultural multilingual. World and they want to build more border there so they want to discriminate between see this as they want to separate and fragments of societies like all nationalists do i understand that but these should be done within this space that we have that we have built which is a constitution you say this referendum is illegal why dont you just give the people of catalonia a legal referendum let them all vote the scotland option thats what they did in scotland and they voted to stay in the u. K. Wouldnt that be the best way to resolve this issue for good. Fundamental differences of this column is an exception its not the rule if you go to germany if you go to either leave you go to france and i imagine you might in whether germany would accept an independent referendum from bob you know for instance the actually the Constitutional Court exactly like the course of somebody in spain after by you know demanded a referendum they said not so look this is our constitution. You can change a constitution and you can change this way out of the article number two that says that this foreign people of spain are all the people of spain not the ones that want to themselves the french. The nationalists we could do that but for that you need majorities and the National Government doesnt even have a job if we didnt get along and in spain honestly i doubt they will get one but thats thats thats a pursuit i think i insist their ways of being. Very much odonnell me and. Over over the last thirty years get along and spend both whether they have progressed more than any other country broadly in europe the levels again government everything innovation Human Capital has gone up massively and this is weve got to get a little framework for quickies thing i think breaking all these fracturing as a savior this going to be devoted into and insisting on on breaking apart piece by this which when thanks to our guests to tony to simon to alfred who had to leave us early if you want to see the program again you can watch it at aljazeera dot com to tell us your thoughts about catalonia or suggest a topic for future programs go to our Facebook Page thats facebook dot com forward slash a. J. Inside story you can also reach us using twitter our handle is at a. J. Inside story ill be back here in just under twenty four hours but for now from all the team here by. A new level of luxury has arrived. An experience that will transform the way you treat. Our Impeccable Service remains. But none comes breaking. Business class. The culture for this is the forecast. Whether conducting business or sharing especially with. The best of. The feeling that. Someone. Somewhere. Centuries in the sky. Reducing. Us to use. Cars oh it was going places together. Like a book its a oh is it a listen when theyre on line me what in hurricane winds full almost like thirty six hours these are the things that you care has to address or if you join us on sat im a member of a complex one but we struck up a relationship base is a dialogue tweet us with hostile a. J. Stream and one of your pitches might make the next show join the global conversation at this time on aljazeera. Your child is there im still rob and these are our top stories the palestinian faction hamas says it has reached a deal on political reconciliation with fatah move that could signal an end to a decade long divide between the two groups have arson fire there have been meeting in the egyptian capital cairo to discuss the formation of a National Unity government negotiations brokered by egypt started on tuesday lets get the very latest from harry falsities following events for us in ramallah in the occupied west bank great deal of confusion harry about the timing of this press conference what do you know thats right were expecting it to happen or three hours ago local time noon local time here in ramallah what were now hearing is that it already has happened but that it didnt happen live on television as weve been led to expect either a News Conference or a statement from these two factions instead we hear that the agreement has been signed and a Statement Given by ari for hamas and for four fatah but it will be replayed were hearing at a later stage by Egyptian Television so what we dont have yet although