Yet the Madrid government of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero may not be in a mood to negotiate. ETA made a fool of Mr Zaptero in late 2006, when it exploded a car bomb at Madrid's Barajas airport, killing two people, during its most recent ceasefire. The interior minister, Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba, noted that this was the third time that a Spanish government had been burnt after talking to ETA. There will not be a fourth, he declared after the latest arrests.
© The Economist Newspaper Ltd. 2009