New offer for dialogue from ETA's outlawed political wing, but no condemnation of ETA violence

New offer for dialogue from ETA's outlawed political wing, but no condemnation of ETA violence
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By m.p. - Nov 15, 2009 - 4:49 PM

Members of the abertzale left meeting in Asasua, Navarra, on Saturday - EFE

The proposal has been rejected by the Interior Minister as a road to nowhere

The main parties in the Basque Country have rejected the latest proposal from ETA’s outlawed political wing, Batasuna, made on Saturday through the left-wing radicals the ‘abertzale’ left, for dialogue with the Spanish government.

Their statement proposed negotiations between ETA and the Spanish state modelled on the peace process in Northern Ireland, to include talks on the ‘de-militarisation’ of the Basque Country, the release of prisoners, and the return of ‘exiles’ to the País Vasco. They said the talks should take place in ‘the total absence of violence’, but fell short in the statement of condemning ETA violence.

Spain’s Interior Minister, Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba, described the proposals as ‘more of the same’ and a path which leads nowhere. He said the only way to end the conflict is through peace. His view was echoed on Sunday by Andoni Ortuzar, President of the PNV Basque nationalist party in Vizcaya, who believes it shows the abertzale left have lost all their credibility. ‘What they should do,’ he said, is say to ETA that the violence has ended’.

The Partido Popular’s leader in the Basque Country, Antonio Basagoiti, described the proposal as yet another fraud, seeing it as an attempt by the abertzale left to negotiate allowing them to present candidates for the municipal elections which take place in Spain in 2011.

Batasuna was recently confirmed as an illegal party by the European Court of Human Rights.

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Para los partidos políticos vascos, la única salida que le queda a ETA es el abandono definitivo de las armas

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