Spanish cease-fire broken by ETA car bomb at Madrid airport

MADRID, Spain -- A powerful car bomb exploded at Madrid's international airport on Saturday and Spain's government, blaming the Basque group ETA, ended peace talks with the separatists.

The blast left two people missing and 26 injured, most with damage to their ears from the shock wave.

Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero said the government would halt talks with ETA over the bombing. The group had agreed to stop attacks in its cease-fire declaration earlier this year that was seen as the greatest hope in a decade of a peaceful end to the conflict.

"The condition for dialogue was and is the unequivocal desire to abandon violence," said Zapatero, who cut short a family holiday after the bombing. "The very grave attack today by the terrorist band ETA is radically contrary to that desire."

Zapatero had insisted as recently as Friday that he was optimistic the cease-fire would lead to a permanent peace.

ETA did not claim responsibility for the bombing, but a man who placed a warning call before the attack said he was a representative of the group. Following previous attacks, the group has sometimes waited weeks to claim responsibility.

ETA and its political supporters have been warning for months that the peace process was faltering. They have complained that the government has made no gesture to reciprocate its call for a cease-fire, such as meeting a long-standing ETA demand for its prisoners to be moved to the Basque region of northwestern Spain from other parts of the country.

The group has also said that continued arrests of suspected members and court rulings against the movement have broken a government promise to relieve pressure on the pro-independence group. It is also angry that the government has refused to allow talks among Basque political parties on the region's future until ETA's outlawed political wing Batasuna renounces violence.

The head of ETA's political wing, Arnaldo Otegi, said Saturday after the attack that he did not consider the peace process dead.

"Not only is it not broken, but it more necessary than ever," he said.

"What happened in Madrid, if it's confirmed ETA is behind it, doesn't take us back to the scenario that existed before March 24," he added, referring to the day ETA declared its cease-fire.

Otegi blamed the government for the recent breakdown in peace talks, saying it has not made any gestures to the separatist group.

The attack early Saturday, which occurred inside a multistory parking garage at the airport, halted some air traffic on one of the year's busiest travel days.

More than 1,000 pounds of explosives had been packed inside the car used in the bombing, Spanish media reported. The explosion sent a massive column of smoke into the air and collapsed part of the building, sending rubble crashing onto parked cars.

Two Ecuadorean men believed to have been sleeping inside a parked car were missing in the rubble, officials said.

More than 800 people have died since the ETA took up arms in the late 1960s, but none since May 2003. The group had continued a series of low-level bombings until just before it declared the cease-fire in March.

The opposition Popular Party, which has strongly opposed Zapatero's stance on negotiations with ETA, urged the government to break contact with the group and work to defeat it.

"This attack means that ETA is a criminal organization that doesn't want peace" said Popular Party leader Mariano Rajoy.