Madrid holds key talks with ETA

Madrid: Spain's prime minister said there had been high-level talks with Basque group ETA in an attempt to defuse violent separatism in the country's troubled northern region.

"There have been direct and indirect contacts during a short period," Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero said during a television interview on Canal Cuatro station late on Thursday.

Zapatero said he would not give details about the talks, in order to protect those involved.

"One has to have prudence because there are people who committed themselves a great deal, including people from outside our country to whom I am very grateful," Zapatero said.

This week, ETA announced the end of a 15-month self-imposed ceasefire, though it was involved in a massive car bomb explosion at Madrid's international airport on December 30, demolishing a five-storey car park, killing two people and shattering any hope of a negotiated solution.

Breaking point

Zapatero broke off all contact with ETA following the explosion. He, however, said that he still felt it had been his obligation as government leader to try for a negotiated end to violence.

ETA, which stands for Basque Homeland and Freedom, is accused of killing more than 800 people since 1968 in a violent campaign for independence from Spain.

"I would have wished to have had the backing other prime ministers had," Zapatero said in reference to heavy criticism from the opposition conservative Popular Party.

When in opposition, Zapatero said he offered former prime minister Jose Maria Aznar his full support in efforts to eradicate terrorism from Spain.

The Popular Party, now led by Mariano Rajoy, claims Zapatero's government has shown weakness in trying to deal with ETA, which has been classified in Madrid, Brussels and Washington as a terrorist organisation.

For hundreds of potential targets of the armed separatist group in Spain's northern Basque region, the decision means they have to be extra vigilant.

Active in the political life of San Sebastian, the coastal capital of Gipuzkoa whose picturesque coastline makes it a popular beach resort, since the 1970s, Usandizaga said she has had to "give up many things" because of ETA.

Madrid (Reuters) Spanish police arrested the leader of the banned Basque separatist party Batasuna for praising terrorism yesterday, just three days after ETA rebels called off a ceasefire.

Arnaldo Otegi was arrested in the northern city of San Sebastian, where he had been due to give a news conference, after Spain's Supreme Court confirmed a 15-month prison sentence for praising ETA terrorism, a Batasuna official said.

Otegi's arrest came just three days after ETA broke off a ceasefire it had declared in March last year, and promised to act "on all fronts" to attack the Spanish government in its fight for independence of the Basque Country.

Otegi had been sentenced last year for appearing at a demonstration in 2003 to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the death of an ETA rebel.

Batasuna is banned because of its links to ETA but had been expected to take part in consultations over the region's future if peace negotiations had been successful. Premier Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero called off the talks when the ETA detonated a bomb at Madrid airport in December, killing two people.

Hopes of resurrecting negotiations were finally dashed on Tuesday, when ETA said it was ending what it had called a "permanent ceasefire." The government acted quickly and on Wednesday transferred the best-known ETA prisoner to a jail near Madrid instead of allowing him house arrest as it had previously promised.