Basque truce ‘not to be trusted’ says Spain interior minister

Interior Minister Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba said the ceasefire could simply be an attempt on behalf of ETA to legitimise its political arm Batasuna ahead of municipal elections in 2011.

“The announcement clearly intends to hide their weakness, because if they do not hide their weakness, the calls within their own grassroots support for them to disarm will grow," Rubalcaba said.

ETA has called ceasefires several times before, the most recent being in 2006, when a truce was ended by a deadly bomb attack at Madrid’s airport. Previous ceasefires are regarded by analysts as attempts to regroup to launch other attacks.

Rubalcaba said he viewed the term "truce" as dead, because ETA had broken ceasefires three times before, notably with the Madrid airport attack. The three masked ETA members did not say, in the video in which they announced the ceasefire, whether the truce was permanent, or why suddenly decided to halt attacks.

The separatist group has killed over 850 people over the years in an attempt to form an independent state in northern Spain and southwest France. The group has recently been damaged by arrests of its members and a Basque increase in support for a democratic solution to the independence movement.

Francois Heisbourg of the Paris-based Foundation for Strategic Research said "It looks more like a breathing spell of indeterminate duration rather than something indicative of an actual readiness to engage in (a real peace process).”