Basque rebels ETA say to end Spanish ceasefire

Madrid, June 5: Basque rebels ETA, who want independence from Spain, will end their ceasefire as of June 6, the armed separatists said in a communique released in Basque newspaper Berria on Tuesday.

''The minimum conditions for continuing a process of negotiations do not exist,'' ETA said, adding that the government of Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero responded to its ceasefire ''with arrests, torture and persecution.'' ETA declared a ceasefire in March 2006 and had insisted that it still held despite killing two people with a bomb in Madrid airport late in December.

But the latest announcement, which has been widely anticipated by the state security services, could mean another big attack is imminent, Spanish media has reported.

Spain's Socialist government started exploratory peace talks in mid-2006 but broke them off at the end of the year after the airport bomb.

ETA has killed more than 800 people in four decades of armed struggle for independence of the Basque Country, despite the fact that the region already enjoys considerable autonomy.

Reuters>