Basque separatists end 40 years of insurgency in Spain as ETA disbands

Basque separatist group ETA formally declared its dissolution Thursday, marking the definitive end to western Europe’s last armed insurgency after more than four decades of violence.

Created in 1959 at the height of Francisco Franco’s dictatorship, ETA was blamed for hundreds of killings and kidnappings in its fight for an independent Basque homeland in northern Spain and southwest France.

The group said in a “final” statement it has “completely dismantled all its structures” and “has put an end to all its political activity.”

“ETA wishes to end a cycle of the conflict between the Basque Country and the Spanish and French states; the cycle of the use of political violence,” it added in the statement, dated Thursday and presented in Switzerland and Spain.

ETA was blamed for the deaths of 829 people during its armed campaign.

The group’s highest-profile killing was that of Franco’s prime minister and heir apparent, Luis Carrero Blanco, in a Madrid car bombing in 1973.

ETA also kidnapped dozens of business leaders to finance its activities.

Weakened in recent years by the arrest of its leaders, ETA announced a permanent ceasefire in 2011 and began formally surrendering its arms last year.

ETA had already announced that it would be fully disbanding in a leaked letter addressed to various groups and figures involved in recent peace efforts and published Wednesday by Spanish online newspaper El Diario. International mediators will hold a peace conference in southwest France on Friday. Irish former Sinn Fein party leader Gerry Adams and representatives of several Spanish political parties are expected to attend.