MADRID, April 19 (Xinhua) -- The Spanish government insists the news that the Basque separatist group ETA will permanently dissolve at the start of May "changes nothing", in regard to Spanish policy towards the group which has carried out a 50-year struggle for the independence of the Basque region in northern Spain and southwest France.
Reports in the Spanish press earlier Thursday that ETA would dissolve on May 5 were confirmed by Alberto Spectorovsky, a member of the International Contact Group, an international organization which seeks to "normalize" the situation in the Basque region, who said the declaration would "be very clear".
Spanish Deputy Prime Minister Soraya Saenz de Santamaria said the decision, which comes 50 years after, showed terrorism was defeated by "the firmness of the State of Law" and only "with the law", adding the news that ETA will cease to exist "will not achieve anything at all".
Interior Minister Juan Ignacio Zoido echoed that message, saying "ETA didn't achieve anything when they stopped killing and they are not going to achieve anything with the declaration of their dissolution."
The Spanish government would "continue to defend what really happened and preserve the memories, dignity and justice of the victims of terrorism," added Zoido.
Meanwhile, the spokesman of the Basque Nationalist Party (PNV) Joseba Egibar said he hoped the end of ETA would be "clear and not open to doubt" and that the organization would take "responsibility for all of the suffering they have caused."
ETA began life in 1959 during the dictatorship of General Franco as a pro-Basque cultural organization, but evolved into a paramilitary organization with wide roots throughout Basque society.
The organization claimed its first victim in 1968 when a civil guard was shot, and the last person killed by ETA was a French policeman in March 2010.
Continued police pressure in both France and Spain in recent years and rejection by a large part of Basque society meant that the ETA had already lost much of its power and effectiveness prior to the 2010 cease-fire.
