Madrid - The Basque terrorist movement ETA has delivered a new offer to the government for peace talks to end over 30 years of violence, Jane Walker reports. The offer was published yesterday in a communique in a local newspaper on the 20th anniversary of the Statute of Gernika, approved by a large majority of the Basque people, which granted the region a wide measure of autonomy. There have been no killings since ETA declared a unilateral ceasefire 13 months ago, nor, on the other hand, much progress in the peace process. Only one meeting is known to have taken place, five months ago in Switzerland.
The latest ETA offer contained conditions, any of which would be difficult for any government to meet. The government must release all ETA prisoners currently in Spanish jails, they must agree to withdraw Spanish armed forces, including Civil Guards, based in the Basque Country. ETA demanded that its negotiators would be three of its top terrorists - two of them serving sentences in Spain and a third in France. The talks must take place in the Basque Country and not on neutral ground, and ETA demanded that the government must accept the wishes for self-determination of the Basque people.