The armed Basque separatist organisation ETA announced on Wednesday it is declaring a permanent ceasefire, a condition set by Spain’s government for the opening of talks with the group.
”ETA has decided to declare a permanent ceasefire from March 24 2006,” the organisation said in a statement.
”The aim of this decision is to launch a democratic process in the Basque country … At the end of this process, Basque citizens will be able to have a voice and the power to decide their future.
”An end to the conflict is possible today and now,” it said. ”This is the hope and desire of ETA.”
ETA has been blamed for about 800 deaths in a four-decade campaign to create an independent state covering Spain’s northern Basque country and parts of south-western France.
Spanish First Deputy Prime Minister Maria Teresa Fernandez de la Vega welcomed the ETA statement and said the government hopes the ceasefire means the ”beginning of the end” of violence.
”This is good news for all Spaniards,” she added, saying ”the government will work with all political forces” to achieve peace.
But she also warned that ”we must remain more prudent than ever in the face of such a momentous development”.
Earlier, a government spokesperson had said Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero’s administration was ”analysing” the ETA statement.
Zapatero, who took office in April 2004, has stressed for months his willingness to hold a dialogue with Basque radicals but only on condition they lay down their arms and renounce violence.
Zapatero’s Socialist government had been eagerly awaiting the ETA announcement for several weeks, and he insisted in February he had information that concrete progress towards peace was at hand.
A permanent end to hostilities by ETA was a condition set by Zapatero for an opening of discussions with the organisation, whose last fatal attack was in May 2003.
However, the group has continued to wage low-level violence in the form of car bombs and assorted attacks on public buildings and firms, mainly in the Basque region.
A government spokesperson said she could not say whether Zapatero would be able to attend a European Union summit this week in Brussels in light of the news.
The ceasefire was announced in an ETA video broadcast on the Basque regional public television station EiTB.
Three hooded ETA members sat at a table beneath ETA flags and logos, with a female member announcing the group was ”calling on the authorities of Spain and France to respond positively to this new situation, by abandoning repression” in the Basque region.
She further called for a truly democratic situation in the Basque country, moving beyond the long conflict and building a peace based on justice.
Socialist Party parliamentary spokesperson Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba made a televised statement that echoed De la Vega’s pleasure at the announcement, but also her caution.
”We welcome the communication as a positive development. It is good news for all,” Rubalcaba said, while adding that now is a time for caution at a time when peace seems set to come to the Basque region and the whole of Spain. — Sapa-AFP