Spain's ruling Socialist party announced today it would seek parliamentary support to start talks with ETA Basque separatists if they abandoned their arms.
Socialist Party spokesman Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba said a parliamentary motion, submitted yesterday, made no concessions to ETA but was an attempt to end decades of violence in the turbulent Basque region of northern Spain.
"To talk in a democracy you have first to abandon your arms," he told a news conference.
Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero's Socialist Party will start consultations tomorrow to try to reach a consensus on the proposal before a vote in parliament on Tuesday. The motion is expected to win support from the government's parliamentary allies in small regional and leftist parties.
The proposal, which comes amid speculation ETA could announce a truce, deepened a rift with Spain's opposition centre-right Popular Party, which insists a police crackdown is the only way to deal with ETA.
"It is unprecedented for a parliament to offer dialogue to an armed organisation," Popular Party leader Mariano Rajoy said. "This motion shows a hand being held out to ETA."
A poll published by El Paisnewspaper today showed a majority of Spaniards favoured starting talks with ETA if it gave up its arms. Despite several small bombings, ETA has not killed in two years and political allies in banned separatist party Batasuna have called for political negotiations and an end to violence.
Batasuna leader Arnaldo Otegi hailed the Socialists' proposal as positive but said it fell short of separatists' demands that Spain recognise the region's right to self-determination.
Ranked as a terrorist organisation by the European Union and the United States, ETA has killed almost 850 people since 1968 in a campaign for a separate Basque state carved from northern Spain and southwest France.
The national survey of 800 people published by El Paissaid 61.4 per cent of Spaniards favour negotiating with ETA if it abandoned its arms. Only 28.8 per cent of Spaniards were against it, according to the survey by pollsters Instituto Opina.