Posted : Mon, 09 Jul 2007 10:57:59 GMT
Author : DPA
Madrid - The Cuban government acted as a courier between the Spanish
government and the armed Basque separatist group ETA during the recent
attempt to launch a peace process, the daily El Mundo reported Monday.
Interior Minister Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba, however, denied the report.
Messages from Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero's
Socialist government to ETA were transmitted to a Spanish intermediary,
who passed them on to the Cuban government, according to the daily.
Cuba put the messages into writing and handed them over to Joseba
Alvarez, one of the leaders of ETA's political wing Batasuna, who
travelled frequently to the Caribbean island.
El Mundo said Cuba had participated in the incipient peace process at
the same time as Zapatero's government maintained other contacts with ETA.
The government scrapped the six-month peace process after ETA broke its
ceasefire with a car bombing that killed two people at Madrid airport on
December 30.
El Mundo, however, claimed that the government stayed secretly in touch
with ETA through the Cuban "mail box" for months after the official end
of the peace process.
The daily linked Cuba's alleged role with what it described as
Zapatero's permissive policy towards Fidel Castro's regime.
Rubalcaba denied the report, saying Spain had made it clear to foreign
governments that it would not talk to ETA as long as the group resorted
to violence.
The daily El Pais meanwhile reported that France was investigating the
role of a detained ETA suspect in the peace process.
Jon Iurrebaso, who was arrested in France on March 29, told police he
was a peace negotiator, presenting the phone number of a senior French
official and two Spanish phone numbers whose origin was being investigated.
Spain has braced for an attack by ETA after the group officially ended
its ceasefire on June 6.
ETA has killed more than 800 people in its armed campaign of nearly four
decades for a Basque state carved out of northern Spain and southern France.
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