The Basque separatist group Eta has issued a second statement reaffirming its intention to lay down arms in Spain.
The statement, sent to the Basque daily newspaper Gara, said the ceasefire would begin at midnight.
In a videotaped statement delivered yesterday, three Eta members said they were ending their armed campaign and turning instead to democratic means.
The group has been blamed for more than 800 deaths and billion of euro in damage since it began its war to secure an independent Basque homeland in northern Spain and south-west France in the 1960s.
Spanish prime minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, who has made granting more rule to Spain's regions a key goal, expressed caution and hope at Eta's statement. But he was evasive when asked if he would start negotiating with Eat under an offer he made last year, contingent on the group renouncing violence.
"Any peace process after so many years of horror and terror will be long and difficult," he told parliament.
Mr Zapatero said that until now, Spain's political parties had been joined in pain over Eta violence. "Now I trust we will be joined in hope."
Yesterday's video showed three people seated at a table in front of an Eta flag, their faces covered by beige masks and all wearing Basque berets. The figure in the middle, a woman, read the statement.
Eta "has decided to declare a permanent ceasefire as of March 24th, 2006," the statement said. "The aim [of the ceasefire] is to promote a democratic process in the Basque country and to build a new framework in which our rights as a people will be recognised."
The statement was sent to several Basque media outlets, including Gara.
Belfast
Redemptorist priest Fr Alex Reid, who was a key intermediary at the time of the IRA ceasefire, was involved in the Eta moves to announce the ceasefire. He said Eta would have taken "a lot of courage and a lot of inspiration from the Irish peace process" in reaching its decision to call the ceasefire.
Eta has announced ceasefires in the past but never one it has called permanent.
Many Spaniards believed that after the March 11th, 2004, terrorist attacks in Madrid, carried out by Islamic extremists, Eta had effectively been immobilised.