TWO ETA SUSPECTS ARRESTED IN VALENCIA

Two suspected members of the Basque terrorist group ETA who were arrested in Valencia on Thursday, were planning "imminent attacks", according to the Spanish Interior Ministry. Police officers found a pistol, explosives and a list of potential targets across Spain inside the Valencia hostel where the man and woman were staying. Police cordoned off the hostel, near City Hall, and evacuated the area. A week earlier, an ETA suspect accused of plotting to shoot the king was arrested two days after a car bomb exploded in Madrid on February 9th, just hours before King Juan Carlos, Queen Sofia, the president of Mexico, Vicente Fox, and his wife were due to visit a nearby building. The two people arrested in Valencia are Mikel Orbegozo Etxarri, 25, and Sara Majarenas Ibarreta, 24. When the police approached Mr Etxarri on Thursday, he pulled a pistol from a holster and aimed it at the officers, but he was arrested without shots being fired after a chase through the city centre. Police then arrested Ms Ibarreta in the hostel in the Pasaje de la Sangre, which is often used by foreign visitors to the eastern city. Police are reported to have found letters from an ETA leader in France saying the group needed to start "killing people as soon as possible" to raise morale among its members. Before the arrests in Valencia on Thursday, Prime Minister José Luis Rodriguez Zapatero said that rumours of talks between his government and ETA were untrue. He said there could be no negotiation with the terrorist group until it pledged to give up violence. He warned ETA and its supporters that there was no place for them in Spain's democracy. Minister José Antonio Alonso, who was on a visit to Morocco when the arrests in Valencia were made, told reporters Spain needed to "keep its guard up, keep applying political pressure and continue the strategy of absolute determination in the fight against the terrorist organisation ETA". ETA has been blamed for more than 800 deaths since the 1960s in its battle to form an independent Basque homeland. (Photos: Masked police escort ETA suspect Sara Majarenas from the hostel in Valencia. The view from the window of the room rented by her and Mikel Orbegozo looks onto the Valencia Council building. The day after the arrests were made, the room had already been rented to three young American tourists.)