Foreign Minister Carme Chacón said Wednesday that she will propose to EU foreign ministers meeting in Brussels next Monday and Tuesday that the EU’s anti-piracy campaign in the Indian Ocean off the coast of Somalia, Operation Atalanta, change its strategy, and that it blockade three ports that she says are the source of the pirate attacks in the area. Somali pirates use “mother ships” to travel vast distances to attack freighters in the shipping lanes joining Europe with Asia.

Somali pirates are currently holding 12 ships, including one Spanish ship, the Alakrana, with 36 crew aboard, captured 2 October. Two days later, A Spanish ship captured two presumed pirates who are being tried in Spain. From Somalia the pirates have demanded that they be released as part of a deal to release the ship and the crew. Spanish officials have said that one option would be to sign a prisoner exchange agreement with the Somali provisional government, which would allow the two pirates to serve out their sentence in Somalia, once they have been sentenced. AFP, El Pais (Spa)

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