Spain car bomb crushes hopes of ETA truce

A car bomb exploded in a seaside town in northern Spain yesterday, injuring a police officer, in an apparent hardline response from Basque guerilla group ETA that quashed growing expectations of a ceasefire.

The blast destroyed the car and damaged a nearby house in Las Arenas, a wealthy district of the Basque town of Getxo that is home to captains of industry and often targeted by ETA.

The 40-kilogramme bomb blew up soon after Basque newspaper Gara received a warning call in the name of the outlawed group, which only three days earlier said it backed a negotiated end to violence.

The newspaper passed the warning to police who cordoned off the area, but one officer was caught by the blast, he said.

The explosion snuffed out hopes that a weakened ETA might be on the brink of a ceasefire in its 37-year-old campaign to carve an independent Basque state out of France and Spain, in which some 850 people have been killed.

Only shortly before the blast, the leader of a party banned as ETA's political wing dismissed hopes of an imminent truce.

"The process (of negotiations) does not exist and this is a country still in conflict," Arnaldo Otegi told reporters, adding "we are trying to resolve things another way".

The Peugeot 306 used in the bombing was stolen at gunpoint by two men in the nearby industrial city of Bilbao yesterday morning. The ETA caller told Gara where the driver would be found tied up, although news reports said he managed to wriggle free.

ETA, classed as a terrorist group by the EU and the US, said in a statement on Sunday it backed negotiations but made no mention of laying down its weapons.

Spain's Socialist government swiftly ruled out talks unless ETA disarmed and ended its bombing and shooting campaign.

"The problem is that ETA has already had several truces. A truce would be nothing new. It would have to do something more," a senior government source said late on Monday, calling for ETA to set a time and place for handing over its arms.

ETA, which has not killed anyone since May 2003, has planted a number of small bombs in the last six months in what analysts see as a bid to retain its political influence despite several high-profile arrests and arms seizures last year.

However, Otegi's Batasuna party needs an ETA truce if it is to stand at regional elections in May.

A plan by Basque regional premier Juan Jose Ibarretxe for virtual independence from Spain also requires an ETA truce if a regional referendum on the proposal is to go ahead. His supporters have predicted an ETA truce within months.

The Basque government reacted angrily yesterday to a pact between Spain's ruling Socialist party and the conservative opposition to quash rapidly Ibarretxe's proposal for a "status of free association" with Spain.

Ibarretxe demanded an urgent meeting with Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero and the leader of the opposition after the government leaked plans to overturn his plan in Spain's parliament in early February.