HMS Turbulent docked Monday for "a routine visit for a few days," officials from the Command of British Forces said, adding that a first submarine, HMS Trenchant, had left the tiny British territory last Wednesday after a four day visit.

Spanish ecology group Verdemar on Tuesday repeated protests about nuclear submarine visits to the territory bordering Spain.

Last week, the British government denied suggestions by a Spanish official that they had been negotiating an agreement with the Spanish government to restrict the use of Gibraltar by submarines.

"No negotiations of this kind have taken place," the British Foreign Office said in a statement, repeated by the British Governor's office in Gibraltar.

Last month, the Spanish government said it was still waiting for Britain to express in writing a commitment London made four years ago to end visits by British nuclear submarines to Gibraltar, although Madrid recognised that the territory's interior waters were ceded by Spain to Britain in the 1713 Treaty of Utrecht.

In May 2001, then Spanish foreign minister Josep Pique said his British counterpart Robin Cook had told him nuclear repairs to British submarines in Gibraltar would cease.

But there have been several such visits since, including last February by HMS Sceptre for maintenance, an arrival that drew a formal protest from Madrid and a complaint from Gibraltar, whose authorities said they were not told in advance of the visit.

Britain says Gibraltar provides an important support facility for maintenance and that several other submarines have docked there in recent years.

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