ETA expected to announce full ceasefire over Christmas

ETA will in all likelihood announce a permanent and verifiable ceasefire around Christmas time, according to left-wing Basque nationalist groups with historical ties to the terrorist organization.

Since September 25, when these radical pro-independence leftists (known collectively as abertzale) publicly requested that ETA announce a definitive ceasefire, their leaders had been speculating on a date. Last Thursday, a top abertzale leader, Rufi Etxeberria, said on public radio that ETA will offer "a positive response" to their demands.

Radical nationalists are pressing for such a statement to be made before January 28, the deadline for registering a new political party with the Interior Ministry. Abertzale circles have been working for months toward the creation of a new party to participate in municipal elections next May.

One of the requisites for establishing such a party is that it expressly renounce the use of violence as a legitimate tool for independence. Until now, radical nationalists have avoided making such a statement. Previous ETA-supporting parties, chiefly Batasuna and its offshoots, were successively outlawed by the 2002 Party Law, which prohibited parties from providing political support to terrorist groups.

A previous ETA ceasefire in 2006 ended with a bomb attack against Barajas airport in December of that year.