Spain's Basque regional government called on armed separatist group ETA to renounce violence today, stepping up political pressure on the severely weakened guerrillas to lay down their arms.
The plea came after police arrested 17 suspected ETA members in northern Spain, the latest in more than 100 arrests in Spain and France this year.
Some 150 police rounded up a suspected network providing ETA with infrastructure, support and information on targets to attack, officials said.
"They ... form the eyes and ears of that structure (ETA)," Interior Minister Mr Jose Antonio Alonso told reporters.
ETA has killed over 800 people since 1968 in a bombing and shooting campaign for an independent Basque homeland, but there have been signs recently that at least some of the group's members favour an end to violence.
Hopes had been raised that the radical Basque separatist party Batasuna, seen as ETA's political wing, would condemn violence in a highly anticipated announcement on Sunday.
But Batasuna instead called for peace talks, so the Basque government decided to issue its own appeal to ETA, said Mr Miren Azkarate, number two in the Basque government, which is led by the non-violent Basque Nationalist Party.
"ETA is called on to publicly declare to the Basque people that it definitely gives up violence to achieve its political goals," Mr Azkarate said.
Spain's ruling Socialist party has been calling on Batasuna to condemn violence and thus allowing it to become legal again. The authorities outlawed the party in 2002 for refusing to condemn ETA violence.
Politicians appear to be seizing on the apparent weakness of ETA, which is branded as terrorist by Spain, the European Union and the United States.
From 2000 to 2003 police arrested 650 suspected ETA members or collaborators, mostly in Spain and France. In that time the number of ETA killings fell from 23 in 2000 to three last year, and there have been no fatal attacks in the past 17 months.
At the end of October ETA said in a letter to Basque television that it would be open to negotiations with Spain. Shortly afterwards, six jailed ETA members reportedly urged the group to abandon armed struggle.
The Socialist government, like the conservative government before it, rules out talks with ETA.