Spain close to crushing ETA, says PM

The capture of ETA’s suspected leader has brought Spain closer to crushing the armed Basque separatist group, Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero said in an interview published today.

Zapatero told El Pais newspaper that after the October 3 arrest of Mikel Antza in south-west France and the seizure of a large weapons cache – Spain’s biggest coup against ETA in more than a decade – he is cautiously optimistic about eliminating ETA altogether.

“I think we are closer to the end of the violence,” Zapatero said in the wide-ranging interview, granted to discuss his first six months in power at the head of a Socialist government.

ETA has claimed responsibility for dozens of attacks that have killed 800 people over more than 30 years.

Zapatero also denied that Spain’s relations with the United States had suffered because of his withdrawal of Spanish troops from Iraq shortly after taking office in April.

The prime minister said that after he called last month for other countries with troops in Iraq to follow suit, he received a letter from US President George Bush.

“He (Bush) said more or less the same thing he did when I withdrew the troops from Iraq. That he was not very pleased, and that relations between friends should be conducted otherwise,” Zapatero said.

“And I answered, as I did the other time, that sincerity is friendship’s best value and that Spain considers itself a friend of the United States, wants to be and will continue to be,” he added.

“I thought, I think and I always will think the war in Iraq was a mistake,” Zapatero was quoted as saying.