Ousted Catalan leader urges Madrid to accept results, negotiate.

The former leader of Catalonia urged Madrid to enter political negotiations following a regional election that gave pro-independence parties a majority in the Catalan parliament.
"We are a democratically mature country that has earned the right to become a republic of free men and women," said former Catalan President Carles Puigdemont.
In a recorded address made from self-imposed exile in Brussels, Belgium, Puigdemont appealed to Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy to accept the election results.
"The ballot boxes have spoken, democracy has spoken, everyone has been able to express themselves. What is Rajoy waiting for in order to accept the results?" Puigdemont said in a speech posted Saturday on social media.

It's unlikely Rajoy will be receptive to the appeal. He has refused to meet with Puigdemont, who went to Brussels after Spanish authorities announced they were seeking his arrest. Rajoy says he will meet only with leaders of the pro-unity Ciutadans (Citizens) party.
The Spanish government called the early regional election for Catalonia in the hope of quelling the separatist movement, whose push for independence this year triggered the crisis.
That ambition, however, was thwarted when voters backed the three pro-independence parties. Ciutadans, known in the rest of Spain as Ciudadanos, came in first in the December 21 election. However, its 37 seats are not enough for it to form a majority government.
In his video message, Puigdemont stands in front of the Catalan and European Union flags.
"The Spanish government has a new opportunity to behave as the European democracy it claims to be and therefore recognize the results of the elections that took place on December 21," he said in Catalan, "and in this way to start a political negotiation with the legitimate government of Catalonia."
Puigdemont called the 82% voter participation rate a "historic" success and accused Rajoy of using "repression" and "intervention" as a way to deal with the separatist movement.
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