Five hundred years after they were expelled, a Spanish king tells the Sephardic Jewish community they have been missed.

King Felipe VI addressed representatives of Sephardic Jews from different countries, at the royal palace.

A new law in Spain permitting dual citizenship for descendants of the victims of the Inquisition aims to correct what the Spanish government has called an 'historic mistake'.

That 'mistake' was made in 1492, the same year as the final conquest of the Moors too place in Granada, when the monarchs Isabella and Ferdinand ordered Jews to convert to Catholicism, leave the country within weeks or face being burned at the stake.

"Dear Sephardim, thank you for your loyalty," the king said.

"Thank you for having kept like a precious treasure your language and your customs that are ours too. Thank you too for making love prevail over rancour and for teaching your children to love this country.

"How we have missed you."

Today there are an estimated 3.5 million Jews around the globe who have Spanish ancestry.

At the time of the Inquisition, there may have been more than 200,000 Jews in Spain. Many went to the Ottoman Empire, the Balkans, North Africa and Latin America.

Last October the government took steps to expedite 4,300 applications from Sephardic Jews who requested citizenship before the law came into effect.

Justice Minister Rafael Catala said on Monday his administration had already received close to 600 further applications for Spanish nationality.

An earlier law passed in 1924 allowed for citizenship applications from Sephardic Jews but applicants had to renounce their previous citizenship and had to be residents of Spain.