Basque separatists announce truce

In a statement sent to television and newspaper outlets, ETA said it "has decided to declare a permanent cease fire as of March 24, 2006."

"The aim of (the cease-fire) is to promote a democratic process in the Basque country and to build a new framework in which our rights as a people will be recognized," the statement said. "ETA also calls on the Spanish and French authorities to respond positively to this new situation, leaving their repressive ways behind."

ETA often uses local Basque media outlets to issue its pronouncements.

Speculation about an end to ETA's armed campaign has been building for months, despite a recent wave of small-scale bombings against Basque businesses.

Last month, Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero said he was optimistic ETA would soon declare a truce. The group has not staged a fatal attack since May 2003, when a car bomb killed two policemen in the northern town of Sanguesa.

Many Spaniards believed that after the March 11, 2004, terror attacks in Madrid, carried out by Islamic extremists, ETA had effectively been stymied. The belief was that popular revulsion over terrorism made deadly violence politically unthinkable for the group.

Spain's Socialist government last May offered to open negotiations with ETA if it renounced violence, but the group kept up a campaign of relatively minor violence and made no mention of laying down arms in a recent statement.