Minister spells out roadmap for ETA

Wednesday, 01 February 2012 10:34

Written by Editor

Interior Minister Jorge Fernández Díaz has asked the political parties to deal with the end of the Basque terrorist group ETA... ...with “intelligence, prudence, unity and discretion”, adding that the government intended to “keep its guard up” in case it became active again. During his first appearance before parliament, he set out his priorities and objectives, especially his roadmap for dealing with ETA which, in his opinion, still has a “latent” structure and is “acting clandestinely” despite its announcement last October of a “definitive cessation of violence”. As regards demands from ETA sympathisers in the Basque Country that the ETA prisoners should all be relocated to prisons in the Basque Country, instead of all round Spain, the minister said the “only roadmap is that of applying the law” and the prisoners' cases would be dealt with individually and not en masse. Fernandez Diaz said only 30 ETA prisoners had called on the group to disband and that the rest (over 700) still followed orders from the group. In view of recent arrests of ETA members in France and Spain, the minister said the security forces did not intend to lower their guard.