Catalan chief calls for unity after fall-outs

ONE of Catalonia’s top separatist leaders has called for unity as disputes over strategy threaten to split the secessionists.

Catalonia’s regional vice president and head of the Republican Left party, Oriol Junqueras, said yesterday: “We must preserve the unity that is necessary to go all the way on this path to a republic.”

The leaders of the prosperous North-eastern region of 7.5 million people want to leave Spain.

Splits have appeared after regional president Carles Puigdemont said he was delaying an outright declaration of independence “for a few weeks”.