Bombs explode in 4 Spanish towns

MADRID - Bombs exploded near magistrates courts in four Spanish towns on Tuesday and police said they suspected the armed Basque separatist group ETA was to blame.

The explosions damaged buildings but no one was injured, officials said.

The bombs exploded as ETA released a statement saying it was willing to take steps towards a negotiated solution of the Basque conflict. But it said nothing about the government's condition that it lay down its arms before talks could begin.

Basque police said a caller claiming to represent ETA warned the newspaper Gara shortly before one bomb exploded in a rubbish bin in the Basque town of Guernica. Journalists at the scene said the bomb twisted a railing outside a school near the court.

There were also explosions at Ordizia and Amurrio in the Basque country and the fourth blast, caused by a home-made bomb placed by the window of a court, was at Berriozar in Navarre, a region adjoining the Basque country, a government official said.

ETA, classed as a terrorist organisation by Spain, the European Union and the United States, has killed nearly 850 people since 1968 in its campaign for an independent Basque state carved out of northern Spain and southwestern France.

Interior Minister Jose Antonio Alonso condemned the attacks in a statement and said the government would use all the instruments of the law to end the violence.

In a communique published by Gara, ETA referred to a proposed new statute granting greater powers to the northeastern region of Catalonia that has caused controversy.

"Basque citizens' horizons are not to be found in insubstantial areas of responsibility, but in full liberty as a people, specifically in the recognition of the right to self-determination. Because that is the key to a long conflict," it said.

ETA said the solution to the Basque conflict would come through "negotiation and agreement, developing a democratic process among everyone that respects the voice and decision of Basque citizens, without limits or impositions".

ETA was willing to "take steps on that road", it said in the statement that claimed responsibility for recent attacks.

In May, the Spanish parliament backed a government proposal to talk to ETA if it laid down its arms. ETA responded in June by calling for a peace process but it has not made any concession on violence and has continued sporadic bombings.

Police in France and Spain have arrested dozens of ETA suspects in the last year, including many senior leaders.

ETA has carried out about 20 minor attacks this year, but has not killed anyone since May 2003.

- REUTERS