MADRID — Seeking to redress one of the darkest chapters of Spain’s history, the Spanish Parliament on Thursday approved a long-awaited law devised to open the way for citizenship for thousands of Sephardic Jews whose ancestors were expelled in 1492.

“This law says a lot about what we were in the past, what we are today and what we want to continue to be in the future — an open, diverse and tolerant Spain,” Rafael Catalá, the Spanish justice minister, told lawmakers on Thursday.

The law was first proposed by the Spanish government in 2012. Even before Thursday’s final ratification by Congress, the lower chamber of Parliament, the measure generated intense interest in countries like Argentina, Israel and Turkey, which have significant Sephardic communities.

The change in the law should be seen as “an act of historic reparation for a tragic and serious error,” Mario Eduardo Cohen, president of the Center for Research and Diffusion of Sephardic Culture, based in Buenos Aires, said recently in Madrid, on the sidelines of a meeting of representatives of Sephardic communities from around the world.