José María Aznar in 2003

José María Aznar López (born February 25, 1953) is a Spanish politician who served as the Prime Minister of Spain from 1996 to 2004. In office, Aznar carried economic liberalization and deregulation to prepare Spain for entering the eurozone, and aligned closely with the United States in foreign affairs. His center-right People's Party began declining in support after Aznar supported the Iraq War. Aznar subsequently caused the PP under his successor Mariano Rajoy to lose the 2004 Spanish general election to José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero's Spanish Socialist Workers' Party after he refused to acknowledge al-Qaeda's responsibility for the 2004 Madrid train bombings, which he blamed on the ETA.

Sourced

• You know in this moment some perpetrators of the attacks, but you do not know who imagined the attack, who is the leader of the attack who is the idea (sic) of the attack, who established and supported means for the attacks, who defined the logistics of the attacks, who established the strategies of the attack. Nothing...I think that one part of the perpetrators are Islamists, but I think that not only is an Islamist attack.
  • In: Entrevista BBC Aznar, 24-07-2006
  • About the 11 March 2004 Madrid train bombings

• Catalan language is one of the most complete and perfect expressions that I know from the point of view regarding language, I not only read it since many years ago, but I understand it. Moreover,I speak it intimately too.
  • In: L' Aznar destrossant la llengua catalana, December 2006.
  • On an interview with the Catalan Autonomous Television, just before politically coallitioning with Catalan, Canarian and Basque nationalists

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