Basque terror group ETA has declared a ceasefire in its bloody campaign for independence.
Three masked militants announced the truce in a statement released on video yesterday.
Spanish politicians reacted with caution to the announcement, the third time in the past 12 years ETA has declared a ceasefire.
Truce: Members of Basque separatists ETA declaring a ceasefire. The rebel group has decided to no longer carry out armed attacks
The latest pledge to halt more than four decades of murder and mayhem came 14 months after ETA's last deadly attack in Spain on the holiday island of Majorca.
Two policemen were killed after a car bomb exploded in the popular resort of Palmanova in July last year when thousands of British tourists were caught up in a lockdown as authorities tried to stop the assassins fleeing the island.
ETA's violent campaign for independence for seven provinces in northern Spain and south-west France has led to more than 820 deaths over the past 40 years.
It has often targeted Costa holiday resorts in the summer in an attempt to disrupt the country's lucrative tourist trade.
Spanish cabinet ministers were still studying the ETA declaration last night and made no immediate official statement.
But sources close to Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero said the government considered the announcement 'insignificant' and 'insufficient'.
ETA's statement came only days after two Basque pro-independence parties asked the terror group to declare an internationally verifiable ceasefire.
A boy watches on the Basque journal GARA's website a video of ETA armed Basque group deaclaring a ceasefire
A family watches TV as an image of ETA armed Basque group is displayed informing about the ceasefire declared by the group in the northern Spanish Basque town of Guernica
The terror group, which made its statement in Basque, did not mention the words cease-
or truce. They said instead ETA had decided some months ago not to carry out 'offensive armed actions'.
It had previously declared ceasefires in 1998 and 2006 before returning to violence.
Last night analysts said they did not expect the truce announcement to persuade the Spanish government back to the negotiating table.
One said: 'ETA has renounced violence for good in the past and then gone back on its word.
The Spanish government has held a firm line now for some time, renounce violence for good and disarm, or there are no talks.
This ETA statement addresses neither of these issues.' Ebbing support for violence among the Basque people and increased co- operation between the Spanish and French security services have weakened ETA in recent years.
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