MADRID, Spain - (AP) -- Spain will require transit visas for Cubans who stop over en route to another country,
                      seeking to end a flood of asylum requests from Cuban travelers at Madrid's airport.

                      The new policy goes into effect Friday, the Foreign Ministry said Thursday.

                      Spain informed Cuba of the policy change in late January, and talk of it in Havana led to a surge in arrivals of
                      purportedly Moscow-bound Cubans using a refueling stop in Madrid to request political asylum in Spain.

                      More than 200 arrived over the weekend on separate flights, reportedly the biggest number in years.

                      The newspaper El Pais said they had been allowed to leave the airport over the course of the week, but the
                      Foreign Ministry said it could not confirm this.

                      The Spanish government says the number of Cubans who have requested political asylum in Spain has gone from
                      178 in 1999 to 3,000 in 2001.

                      More than 99 percent are classified here as so-called economic emigrants rather than political refugees.

                      Cubans fleeing poverty use flights to Moscow as escape routes because Russia is one of the few destinations they
                      can aim for relatively easily. All they need is a letter from someone in Russia inviting them there, and money for
                      air fare and an exit permit, according to the Cuban Center, an aid group in Madrid.

                      Unlike applicants from other countries, most Cubans are allowed to enter Spain on humanitarian grounds, and
                      given two months to try to obtain a residency permit that will allow them to work legally.

                      But such residency permits are virtually impossible to get under Spain's strict new immigration law, so many
                      Cubans end up living here illegally and working clandestinely at low-paying jobs with no health care or other
                      benefits.

                      The opposition Socialist Party has called on the government to explain its treatment of Cubans. ''We have reason
                      to fear that the government washes its hands of them after letting them in,'' said Consuelo Rumi, the party's
                      director of social and immigrant affairs.