Catalonia’s Leader, Facing Deadline, Won’t Say if Region Declared Independence<br />Mr. Rajoy wrote that the decisions of Mr. Puigdemont’s government had "generated a significant fracture within Catalan society, as well as enormous economic uncertainty," according to a copy of the letter<br />that was distributed to the news media by his government office.<br />He also called on Mr. Rajoy to end "the repression against the Catalan people<br />and government," referring to a court summons issued for the chief of the autonomous Catalan police force and the two leaders of the main pro-independence citizens’ movements.<br />Facing a 10 a.m. deadline on Monday, Mr. Puigdemont asked for a meeting with Mr. Rajoy, according to a copy of his letter, and suggested<br />that the conflict could be resolved, with the help of international mediators, within two months.<br />After a perplexing speech last Tuesday before Catalonia’s Parliament, Carles Puigdemont, the region’s leader, sent a letter to Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy asking to negotiate a solution<br />but declining to clarify whether independence had been declared.<br />16, 2017<br />MADRID — The Spanish government has given a new ultimatum to Catalonia’s separatist leader to clarify whether he was withdrawing his plan<br />to declare independence from Spain, after a Monday morning deadline for the separatists to make their intentions clear came and went.<br />In his letter, Mr. Puigdemont wrote that "the priority for my government is to search intensely for dialogue."<br />But he did not address the crucial question: whether he had declared independence in his address to Parliament last week.
