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The U.S. Ambassador to Spain, Julissa Reynoso, affirmed this Wednesday to the heads of the Association of Victims of Terrorism (AVT) of Spain that the decision of her country to remove ETA from its list of terrorist organizations is a “purely bureaucratic procedure that does not change anything,” trying to play down the importance of the matter.
According to the AVT, Reynosso explained to the president of the association, Maite Araluce, her advisor Miguel Folguera and the lawyer Carmen Ladrón de Guevara that every five years the Department of State has the legal obligation to review the list of terrorist organizations.
In the meeting held this Wednesday, according to the AVT, the ambassador tried to reassure the association by telling it that this withdrawal from the list does not mean at all that the United States does not consider ETA a terrorist organization.
“Terrorists who have cases pending before the courts will continue to be prosecuted, terrorists will not be able to enter U.S. territory or fly over its airspace… That is to say, nothing changes,” the ambassador assured the AVT’s management team.
On May 20, the United States informed that the Department of State removed ETA from the list along with four other foreign terrorist organizations.
ETA, which announced its dissolution in 2018, resorted to terrorist activities for fifty years to force the independence of the Spanish regions of the Basque Country and Navarre (north) and territories in southwestern France, resulting in more than 850 deaths in Spain, hundreds of wounded, kidnappings, extortion and sabotage.
