| Looks like the leopard didn't change its spots. |
Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero said the government would halt talks with ETA over the bombing. The group had agreed to stop attacks in its cease-fire declaration earlier this year that was seen as the greatest hope in a decade of a peaceful end to the conflict.
"The condition for dialogue was and is the unequivocal desire to abandon violence," said Zapatero, who cut short a family holiday after the bombing. "The very grave attack today by the terrorist band ETA is radically contrary to that desire."
ETA did not claim responsibility for the bombing, but a man who placed a warning call before the attack said he was a representative of the group. Following previous attacks, the group has sometimes waited weeks to claim responsibility.
ETA and its political supporters have been warning for months that the peace process was faltering. They have complained that the government has made no gesture to reciprocate its call for a cease-fire, such as meeting a long-standing ETA demand for its prisoners to be moved to the Basque region of northwestern Spain from other parts of the country.
The group has also said that continued arrests of suspected members and court rulings against the movement have broken a government promise to relieve pressure on the pro-independence group. It is also angry that the government has refused to allow talks among Basque political parties on the region's future until ETA's outlawed political wing Batasuna renounces violence.