Zapatero: Peace talks only if Basque groups have given up violence

SPAIN: A key ally of Basque separatists ETA on Sunday said the group would not demand major concessions from Spain's government to restart peace talks abandoned last month after the guerrillas killed two men in a car bombing.

Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero dismissed the offer and said ETA and its supporters had to convince Spain they had given up violence after the Dec. 30 attack on Madrid's Barajas international airport.

Arnaldo Otegi, a spokesman for the ETA-linked Batasuna party, said in an interview that the Basque region would only gain independence by peaceful and democratic means and encouraged all parties to work towards that goal.

Otegi did not condemn the ETA car bomb that shattered a nine-month ceasefire and pushed Zapatero to abandon Spain's fragile, seven-month peace process.

"The Spanish state does not have to pay any kind of political price to ETA or us," Otegi told La Vanguardia newspaper.

"If we put ourselves in the equation 'the end of violence means you have to pay a political price to ETA', there will be no solution. That is equivalent to asking the state to surrender." Zapatero said he had read Otegi's comments and noted a change in what he had said before, but one key element was still lacking.

"What is needed is that Batasuna renounces violence and does it in a credible, convincing and reliable manner for democracy," Zapatero said in an address at Ponferrada in northwest Spain.

Batasuna, banned for its links to ETA, insists the peace process is still viable and the government need not discuss the political status of the Basque region.

To advance the process, Batasuna wants non-political goals like the transfer of ETA prisoners to their home regions, and less police pressure on ETA. It sees the Basque country gaining its independence following a peace deal.

"The independence project can only be built through democratic and peaceful means," Otegi said.

Zapatero faces political pressure to isolate Batasuna and crack down on ETA, after the guerrillas' first deadly attack in more than three years. Tens of thousands of Spaniards allied to the opposition Popular Party and ETA victims' groups marched in Madrid on Saturday to oppose peace talks with the Basque group and demand an ETA murderer serve his full sentence.

The ETA prisoner, Inaki de Juana Chaos, has been on hunger strike for 3-1/2 months and recently had a 12-year sentence for terrorist threats cut to three years.

De Juana recently stopped being force-fed and analysts say his death could spark new Basque violence and further hamper any progress towards ending ETA's four decades of armed struggle.

"The death of a hunger striker in the middle of a process would put us in a very delicate position," Otegi said.

Madrid, Monday, Reuters