Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero will go to parliament within the next few days to ask for permission to start talks with ETA. The Basque terrorist group declared a permanent ceasefire three months ago. Zapatero had promised to visit the lower house of Parliament before the end of June, when MPs go on their summer recess until September.It was still not clear if talks would have the support of the conservative opposition Popular Party (PP), which recently withdrew its backing claiming Zapatero's administration was following a timetable laid out by ETA and by its banned political arm, Batasuna. PP leader Mariano Rajoy refused to lay that question to rest on Sunday, saying instead that "you can't get rid of the terrorist group at any price" and adding that if the government "negotiates with the group on what (the latter) is asking for, that's against the law".
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