Bilbao, Spain  - Several political parties in Spain's northern Basque region on Thursday criticized the militant Basque separatist group ETA, which threatened with new attacks to force the government to negotiate with it.

ETA would not stay with its "arms crossed" but maintain a "resistance against repression," the group said in a communique made public by the Basque newspaper Gara on Wednesday.

ETA said it was convinced that Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero's government would resume the attempt at negotiations it abandoned in December 2006 after ETA violated its ceasefire with a car bombing, killing two people at Madrid airport.

The government has vowed not to talk again to ETA, which has killed more than 820 people in its campaign for a sovereign Basque state since 1968.

In the communique, ETA also claimed responsibility for 10 attacks carried out since July, including a car bombing that killed a soldier in Santona in September.

Unai Ziarreta, president of the Basque nationalist party Eusko Alkartasuna, said the communique did not express anything new, while Basque Socialists urged ETA to announce an end to its terrorist activity.

ETA is listed as a terrorist organization by the European Union and the United States. (dpa)