Jan 10 (Reuters) - Spain's main stock index eventually turned around and finished positive on Tuesday, resuming the upward path after the previous day's pause to close at fresh seven-month highs amid heightened focus on U.S. monetary policy.

Following Monday's somber comments from two Fed members on the need for further rate hikes, Fed Chairman Jerome Powell on Tuesday insisted on the central bank's independence from political influences in its fight against inflation.

"He (Powell) hasn't disrupted the market in any way and the fact that he stresses the need for political independence while addressing inflation, that's definitely positive for the markets," said Peter Cardillo, chief market economist at Spartan Capital Securities.

Reeling from Monday's comments from monetary leaders following the wage moderation shown in last week's data, markets are now awaiting the US Labor Department's consumer price report, due for release on Thursday. It is expected to show some year-over-year moderation for December.

Beyond monetary policy, global markets maintained the rally with which they have started 2023, driven in large part by China's reopening after two years of tightening against COVID-19.

As a result, the Spanish selective stock market index Ibex-35 closed with a rise of 17.80 points on Tuesday, up 0.20%, to 8,712.70 points, a new high since the close on June 9.

Meanwhile, the FTSE Eurofirst 300 index of large European stocks lost 0.59%.

In the banking sector, Santander rose 0.55%, BBVA gained 0.53%, Caixabank advanced 1.38%, Sabadell gained 1.55%, Bankinter gained 1.51%, and Unicaja Banco rose 2.27%.

Among the large non-financial stocks, Telefónica gained 0.51%, Inditex gave up 0.59%, Iberdrola dropped 0.42%, Cellnex fell 0.76% and the oil company Repsol lost 0.20%.

(Information by Darío Fernández; additional information by Ankika Biswas and Amruta Khandekar).