The Basque separatist group ETA called off its ceasefire yesterday, saying the government was not committed to ending the nearly 40-year conflict.

Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero broke off contacts with the ETA after the group blew up an airport parking garage in December, killing two people. The group responded by saying it considered its March 2006 truce still valid and insisting the deaths were unintended.

On Tuesday, however, the group notified two Basque newspapers that the cease-fire will end at midnight and described itself as "active on all fronts to defend the Basque homeland."

ETA had declared the cease-fire unilaterally, saying it wanted to negotiate an end to the conflict, which has left more than 800 people dead.

The government agreed to talk but said it would make no political concessions.

The talks widely believed to have

taken place but never officially confirmed made little progress.

The group reiterated assertions that the Spanish judicial system continued to arrest and try ETA members and suspects while the truce was in effect.

"Minimum democratic conditions for a negotiating process do not exist," ETA said in the statement sent to the pro-independence newspapers Berria and Gara.

"Zapatero's character has turned into a fascism that left parties and citizens without rights," ETA said.