ETA Declares Permanent Cease-Fire

A screen grab shows ETA members declaring their last "permanent cease-fire" in the Basque town of Guernica on September 5, 2010.

The Basque separatist group ETA has declared what it called a permanent and internationally verifiable cease-fire.

ETA's statement in the pro-independence newspaper "Gara" made no mention of ETA dissolving or giving up its weapons as demanded by the Spanish government.

Spain's interior minister, Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba, said an ETA cease-fire declaration failed to meet expectations but was not bad news.

ETA declared what it called a permanent cease-fire in 2006, but that truce ended up lasting just nine months as talks with the government went nowhere.

The group is considered a terrorist organization by Spain, the European Union and the United States, and it has killed more than 800 people since the late 1960s.

compiled from agency reports