ETA reaffirms commitment to decommissioning and peace process in Basque Country

ETA, the Basque military organisation, has said it will continue its process of sealing its weapons dumps and disarmament despite what it calls trifling complaints by the Basque Autonomous Government about the process.

This follows the announcement by ETA last year that it had dismantled its logistical and operational structures “to achieve our legitimate political goals through a political and democratic struggle”.

ETA said it is prepared to study ways to improve the decommissioning process but “ETA wants to recall that any fault of this process is a result of the attitudes of both the French and Spanish governments”.

“ETA will continue the process to seal its weapon dumps,” the organisation said in a communique to the media last week, and appealed to Basque social and political society “to take this process from a constructive point of view, especially the Basque Autonomous Government, without looking for trifles to attack their political opponents.”

ETA continued:

“Despite its faults, and even if the states have a negative attitude, the most important thing is that when this process is over, ETA's every weapon dump is sealed and the issue of ETA's weapons is on the way to be resolved.”

ETA called on everyone, and especially the Basque Autonomous Government, “to start a dialogue among all those that are for resolution, to agree reasonable ways to overcome every consequence of the conflict, and to establish a roadmap based on those agreements”.

ETA said it believes that a base has already been laid for such a dialogue, including the sealing of ETA weapons dumps, the Collective of Prisoners December 2013 Declaration and EH Bildu's most recent initiative, Basque Way for Peace.

On that process and roadmap, ETA said it is ready to carry out a “shared disarmament design” and make the contribution it has to in the rest of the outstanding issues from the conflict.