Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero says he will seek to open peace talks next month with Basque separatists.
Speaking Sunday in northern Spain near the Basque city of Bilbao, Mr. Zapatero said he will go before parliament in June to announce the start of a dialogue with the separatist ETA movement.
The prime minister's address marked his first visit to Basque country since ETA announced a permanent ceasefire in March.
Spain's socialist government has spent the past two months monitoring the Basque region to determine if the ETA announcement of March 22 was authentic. There have been no reports of ETA attacks since then.
ETA has killed more than 800 people since the late 1960s, in a push for an independent homeland in northern Spain and southwestern France.
Some information for this report was provided by AP and Reuters.