The Spanish government has suspended all dialogues with Basque separatist organization ETA following a car bomb attack by the group in Madrid's Barajas airport, Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero announced on Saturday.

Strongly condemning the incident, Zapatero said the act of violence ran counter to a permanent truce declared by ETA in March.

Describing the attack as an erroneous step taken by ETA, the premier stressed that "they will get nothing except to inflict pain."

So long as ETA refused to unequivocally renounce violence, the Spanish government would not conduct any dialogue with it, he emphasized, reiterating that the fight by the Spanish government and people against ETA would be "long and arduous."

Earlier on Saturday, Mariano Rajoy of Spain's main opposition party Popular Party (PP) issued a statement demanding the government immediately stop all contacts with ETA since the group "does not have any aspiration for peace."

On Saturday morning a car bombing occurred in a parking lot of the Barajas airport, leaving two people missing and 19 others injured. The blast seriously damaged the parking lot and caused a brief disruption of the airport's operation. ETA claimed responsibility for the attack in one of three early morning anonymous telephone calls.

ETA, the abbreviation for Basque Homeland and Freedom which was created in 1959, has called for the establishment of an independent Basque state in the Basque region straddling the Spanish-French border.

Over the past four decades, assassinations, kidnappings and explosions carried out by the group have claimed the lives of nearly 1,000 people. The European Union and the United States have listed ETA as a terrorist organization.

ETA declared a permanent truce on March 22. Three months later, the Spanish government decided to start a dialogue with the group.

(Xinhua News Agency December 31, 2006)