17/10 20h16- SAN SEBASTIAN, Spain (AFP)
International negotiators pressed the armed Basque separatist group ETA on Monday to make a historic declaration ending more than four decades of bombing and shooting.
The request falls short of the requirements of the Spanish government, which continues to demand the outright dissolution of ETA.
“The government reiterates that what the terrorist group ETA should do is definitively abandon violence, that is it,” said government spokesman Jose Blanco. ETA, listed as a terrorist organisation by the European Union and the United States, is blamed for the deaths of 829 people in its violent campaign for an independent Basque homeland in northern Spain and southwestern France. “We have come to the Basque country today because we believe it is time to end, and it is possible to end, the last armed confrontation in Europe,” former Irish premier Bertie Ahern said after the conference. Neither the Spanish government nor the outlawed ETA were at the conference but senior officials widely predicted the talks would provide a face-saving formula for ETA to renounce violence for good. Key recommendations from the talks were:
