By Jason Webb

MADRID, May 28 (Reuters) - The Spanish government said on Wednesday it would block a plan by authorities in the Basque Country for a referendum-style vote on ties with the rest of Spain and ending a decades-long conflict with ETA rebels.

The head of the Basque Country's regional government, Juan Jose Ibarretxe, said he wanted Basques to vote yes or no on Oct. 25 on whether to seek peace talks with ETA.

He would also ask them whether there should be a political debate on the "right to decide" of the Basque people -- a coded reference to the issue of whether the Basque Country should remain in Spain.

"We want to have the right to decide and the right to live together in peace," Ibarretxe said in a statement.

Spain's Socialist government said it would seek a court order to prevent the vote from going ahead, if the Basque regional parliament authorised the referendum plan over the next few weeks.

"We'd hoped not to get to this stage," said Public Administration Minister Elena Salgado, who said that Ibarretxe's proposal violated the Spanish constitution.

If the courts overturn the referendum plan, Ibarretxe is expected to call early elections in the Basque Country.

His Basque Nationalist Party is split between members who want differing degrees of autonomy within Spain and those who want outright independence, but it condemns violence by the armed separatist group ETA.

Polls show most Basques do not want to leave Spain and do not support the bloody campaign for independence fought by ETA, which has killed more than 800 people over four decades.

Tasio Erkizia, a well-known member of ETA's banned political wing Batasuna, which has in the past attracted about 15 percent of the vote in regional elections, announced support for Ibarretxe's plan, "if he does it seriously."

ETA suffered a heavy blow last week when French police arrested the man believed to be its top leader, Francisco Javier Lopez Pena, in Bordeaux.

Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero tried to negotiate a peace deal with ETA during his last government, but called off talks when ETA bombed Madrid airport in December 2006, killing two people.

ETA's last victim was an officer at a police barracks, killed by a car bomb on May 14, the Spanish government says.

Basques, who have an ancient and unique language and culture, also live in southwestern France, but there is much less separatist feeling there. (Additional reporting by Arantza Goyoaga in Bilbao) (Editing by Tim Pearce)

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