ETA's 2006 "permanent ceasefire"

ETA's 2006 "permanent ceasefire" was the period spanning between 24 March and 30 December 2006 during which, following an ETA communiqué, the Spanish government, led by José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero on one side, and the militant group on the other, engaged in talks as a means to agree on a formula to voluntarily disband the latter. It was terminated as a result of the 2006 Madrid Barajas International Airport bombing.

At the time of ETA's declaration, the most recent to date of its killings had been committed on 30 May 2003, whereas its last proven assassination attempt occurred on 17 February 2005. ETA had been briefly blamed for the 11 March 2004 Madrid train bombings, but it soon became clear that the attack was the work of radical Islamists. For the next two years, there had been some conjecture whether ETA was refraining from their previous level of violence out of weakness, out of a change of heart or tactics, or because the 11 March attacks had undercut support for violent political tactics.

On 22 March 2006 ETA sent a DVD message to the Basque Network Euskal Irrati-Telebista and the journals Gara and Berria with a communiqué from the organization announcing what it called a "permanent ceasefire" that was broadcast over Spanish TV. According to the spokeswoman for the organisation, the "ceasefire" would begin on Friday 24 March. In their communiqué, they stated that the French and Spanish governments should cooperate and respond positively to this new situation. On 23 March, Gara published an extended version of the communiqué. The calculated ambiguity of the term "permanent" (which was a novelty when compared to previous "ceasefire" declarations) was widely discussed by most observers, even though it was mostly regarded as a positive sign of ETA's will to quit its violent activities.

Most political parties welcomed the news of a ceasefire on the part of ETA. The government (under the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE) administration) displayed an optimistic and hopeful response to the announcement, although in official statements president Zapatero called for "prudence".

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Wikipedia