The Spanish parliament on Tuesday gave the government the green light to begin a dialogue with ETA to end 35 years of violence in the Basque country provided the separatist group pledges to lay down its arms.
All parliamentary groups except the main opposition Popular Party (PP) backed a resolution sponsored by the ruling Socialists saying that ETA "has no other prospect than dissolve itself and lay down its arms."
The vote was 192 in favor and 147 -- all from the PP -- against.
"If appropriate conditions to end the violence through dialogue -- based on a clear determination to end it and on unequivocal attitudes likely to produce it -- emerge, we back a process of dialogue between the competent state institutions and those who decide to abandon violence," the lawmakers said in their resolution.
Stressing that any dialogue would have to focus on ending violence, the deputies stressed that "at all times the imprescriptible democratic principle under which political issues are debated only by legitimate representatives of the popular will must be respected."
The resolution, which uses the word "dialogue" but not "negotiation," made it clear that terrorism "is totally incompatible with democracy" and that "violence cannot be rewarded politically."
ETA victims said they would hold a demonstration in Madrid on June 11 to protest the parliament decision.
"To reach an agreement with ETA is to humiliate the living and the dead," said the head of the association representing victims of terrorism, Francisco Alcaraz.
The association expects "all good citizens" to join the protest.
"There is no way that the deaths which ETA has caused in this country can be legitimized," said Alcaraz whose brother and niece died in an ETA attack.
Popular Party leader Mariano Rajoy said he would fight any dialogue with the Basque group adding he was certain of the support of "a majority of Spaniards and also of the victims of terrorism."
ETA, which is on a European list of terrorist organizations, has been blamed for the deaths of 800 people in its four-decade armed campaign for an independent homeland in northern Spain and southwestern France.
Last week, Zapatero called on ETA to disband, saying the group "has only one destiny -- to dissolve itself."
Almost two-thirds of Spaniards would support the opening of talks between Madrid and ETA, if it agrees to renounce violence, according to a poll published Saturday.
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