Conditions are ripe for multiparty talks on the future of Spain’s strife-torn Basque region, with armed separatist group ETA having called a ceasefire last month, the leader of the group’s banned political wing said on Wednesday.
”All conditions are in place” for ”a multiparty negotiation” on the future of their wealthy northern region, Batasuna leader Arnaldo Otegi said following a meeting with regional president and moderate nationalist Juan Jose Ibarretxe.
”There are no more excuses to boot matters into the long grass,” said Otegi, in allusion to the tortuous path towards a dialogue between Madrid and Basque hard-line nationalists such as himself.
The Socialist government of Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero had made a renunciation of violence by ETA, blamed for more than 800 killings in a violent independence campaign stretching back to 1968, a non-negotiable condition for talks.
But the group’s March 22 announcement of a ”permanent ceasefire” has given the process new impetus. Basque nationalists are now pushing for multiparty talks culminating in a referendum on upgraded autonomy from the Madrid government, like that planned for the north-eastern region of Catalonia.
For Otegi, Basques must be allowed the opportunity to choose their own future, while Zapatero said on Tuesday he hoped to build ”a great political consensus” on the region’s institutional future.
Zapatero told Cadena Ser radio that the ceasefire appeared wholly genuine on the basis of intelligence reports and added reports of ETA extortion letters to businesses in the Navarra region adjoining the Basque region concerned communications which ”predated” the ceasefire announcement.
The existence of the letters had cast doubt on whether ETA, which regards Navarra as part of the Basque homeland it has fought to establish for four decades, had in fact stopped its criminal activities.
Zapatero told Cadena Ser that after verification of the ceasefire’s application he hoped to ask Parliament ”before the summer” for permission to open a ”dialogue” with the group on disarmament.
The discussions would also cover the regrouping in Basque prisons of detainees currently held across Spain and in France, a key nationalist demand. — AFP
