SPAIN: Peace talks with Basque separatists Eta, who declared a truce in March, must not pander to their claim on the Navarre region as part of the Basque Country, the leader of Spain's opposition said yesterday.
Eta has waged a 38-year guerrilla war for an independent Basque state straddling France and Spain but Paris has ignored any territorial demands, calling Eta a Spanish problem, and politicians in Navarre have refused to get involved.
Basque political party Batasuna, outlawed for its links to Eta, said last week there can be no solution to the Basque issue without Navarre and that citizens of the region must be allowed to decide their own future.
Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero has said he hopes to ask for parliamentary approval to start talks with Eta by the summer but only if the ceasefire holds and means an end to all violence, including street violence and extortion.
On such a delicate and emotive national issue as the Basque problem, Mr Zapatero needs the opposition's backing even though he has a majority in parliament.
Mariano Rajoy, leader of the conservative Popular Party (PP), said a tough line must be held in any talks with Eta. "Today the only thing we must do is to check if there is an irreversible decision from Eta to lay down arms. And from there, not any political price," Mr Rajoy told the pro-government El Pais newspaper.
"None is none: not Navarre, not self-determination, not negotiation. Otherwise we will make terrorism an instrument for conducting politics."
Analysts say the negotiations will likely focus on smaller issues such as where Eta prisoners are held rather than the big political questions Eta - classed as terrorists by the European Union and United States - would prefer to tackle.
A poll published yesterday in Catalan newspaper El Periodico found that 74 per cent of Spaniards support talks between the government and Eta, although 55.8 per cent were sceptical the ceasefire would hold.