Basque separatists turn over weapons
PARIS — The Basque separatist group ETA on Saturday gave French authorities a list of eight caches where police found weapons, ammunition and explosives — a crucial step toward disarmament and an end to its decades-long violent struggle to carve out a homeland on the French-Spanish border.
The Spanish government urged the rebel group to “ask forgiveness from its victims and disappear.”
Paris prosecutor Francois Molins said police have searched each site and discovered, in containers and bags, “dozens of handguns and rifles, thousands of pieces of ammunition, several hundred kilograms of explosives and products that can be used to make explosives, several hundreds of detonators and timers.”
A detailed inventory of the ETA weapons caches is under way and the results of French authorities’ technical examination and other elements of their investigation will be given to Spanish justice authorities, Molins said.
Spain “will not make any evaluation of the handing over of weapons today by ETA until they have been analyzed by French authorities,” Interior Minister Juan Ignacio Zoido said in a televised address.