The Basque separatist organization ETA on Tuesday claimed
responsibility for a car bomb attack at Madrid's Barajas airport
last week.
But ETA insisted the "permanent ceasefire" with the Spanish
government it declared in March 2006 still stood.
"ETA confirms that the permanent ceasefire declared on March 24
still holds (and) claims responsibility for the Madrid attack,"
said a statement published on the website of Basque-language
newspaper Gara.
On Dec. 30, a car bomb exploded in a parking lot of the Barajas
airport, leaving two people dead and 19 injured. The blast
seriously damaged the parking lot and briefly disrupted airport
operations.
The Spanish government immediately suspended all negotiations
with ETA, noting that the government would not conduct any dialogue
with ETA so long as it refused to unequivocally renounce
violence.
ETA, an abbreviation of Basque Homeland and Freedom, was created
in 1959 and has called for the establishment of an independent
Basque state in the Basque region straddling the Spanish-French
border.
Over the past four decades, assassinations, kidnappings and
explosions carried out by the group have claimed the lives of
nearly 1,000 people.
ETA declared a permanent truce on March 22. Three months later,
the Spanish government decided to start talks with the group.
Meanwhile, two suspected members of ETA were arrested earlier in
a joint raid with French police in southern France, said the
Spanish Interior Ministry on Tuesday.
The interior ministry identified one as Asier Larrinaga
Rodriguez and the other as Garikoitz Echeberria.
These have been the first arrests of suspected ETA militants
since the Madrid airport bomb attack .
The Spanish authorities have intensified their crackdown upon
the separatist group ever since.
(Xinhua News Agency January 10, 2007)
