secure independence

Spain has been in turmoil since a disputed referendum on 1 October which was declared invalid by the country's Constitutional Court.

Addressing the Catalan parliament in Barcelona on Tuesday evening, Mr Puigdemont said the autonomous region had won the right to be independent as a result of the vote.

"We call on international states and organisations to recognise the Catalan republic as an independent and sovereign state," he said.

He said the "people's will" was to break away from Madrid, but he also said he wanted to "de-escalate" the tension around the issue.

"I propose suspending the effects of the declaration of independence to undertake talks in the coming weeks without which it is not possible to reach an agreed solution," Mr Puigdemont told MPs.

He and other Catalan leaders then signedno intent to push ahead with plans to separate. This time members of the left-wing CUP party who support a minority Catalan separatist government threatened to walk out.

The speech that was delivered appears to be the third and final draft, which suspends any declaration of independence, and is said to have been influenced by the intervention of the EU Council President Donald Tusk, who urged Mr Puigdemont "not to announce a decision that makes dialogue impossible".

The Catalan government appears to have read this as a sign that the EU could be open to future dialogue, even if Spain is not.

In Madrid, Spanish Deputy Prime Minister Soraya Saenz de Santamaria rejected Mr Puigdemont's proposal for talks through an international mediator.

"Neither Mr Puigdemont nor anybody else can claim... to impose