Madrid: Spain began to pull the police reinforcements it had sent to Catalonia ahead of a contested independence referendum in the region on October 1, the government said.
Officers from Spain's National Police and Guardia Civil forces sent to the northeastern region at the end of September "will be gradually withdrawn until Saturday," a spokesman for the interior ministry said, adding the withdrawal had started Wednesday.
The spokesman did not say how many officers were deployed, but top-selling daily newspaper El Pais put the figure at around 10,000.
Spain's central government also dismissed the Catalan government, dissolved its parliament and called an early election in the region on December 21.
