Victims could attend all–party talks on terrorism

25 October 2004

MADRID – Spanish prime minister Jose Luis Rodríguez Zapatero has suggested a victims’ association should attend all-party talks on the fight against terrorism, political sources said Monday. 

Zapatero said apart from the political parties, the Association of the Victims of Terrorism should be present at talks to be held next week.

Spain’s deputy prime minister Maria Teresa Fernandez de la Vega is to meet the leader of the opposition Mariano Rajoy next week to agree a new anti-terrorism pact, political sources said Monday.

During the meeting on 3 November, the foreign minister Jose Antonio Alonso will give an update on the operations against the Basque separatist group ETA and Islamic extremists.

Spain has an all-party pact against terrorism which was first organised to combat  ETA, which has killed more than 800 people since it started its campaign of violence more than 30 years ago.

But more recently, the threat of Islamic terrorism figured largely in period all-party talks.

The meeting, which has been arranged by the government, will be only the second this year.

The victims’ association, which is principally made up of victims of ETA violence, has consisted opposed suggested that ETA prisoners should be held in the same prisons or near the Basque Country.

They are dispersed throughout Spain, mostly a great distance from the Basque Country.

[Copyright EFE with Expatica]

Subject: Spanish news