Negotiators back on Jolo island to resume talks

Negotiators back on Jolo island to resume talks

JOLO, Philippines (Agencies): Philippine negotiators seeking the release of 40 mostly foreign hostages held by separatist group sailed back to the southern island of Jolo on Wednesday after a month-long break in talks.

"We are here to pursue negotiations and we are very hopeful that we might succeed in releasing some of them," presidential assistant secretary Farouk Hussain told reporters after arriving with Libyan envoy Rajab Azzarouq.

"We wish we will see them soon free and sound," said Azzarouq, a former Libyan ambassador to the Philippines.

Chief government negotiator Roberto Aventajado said on Tuesday rebel chief Galib Andang had called him by phone to say that the fundamentalist Abu Sayyaf was ready to resolve the nearly three- month-long hostage crisis.

Aventajado, who remains in nearby Zamboanga city awaiting developments in Jolo, said the rebels also told him they were ready to present their "bottom-line demands."

Hours after the Philippine negotiators sailed back to Jolo, three European foreign ministers announced on Wednesday that they would fly to Manila to press the Philippine government in person to secure the release of the hostages held by separatist rebels, French Foreign Minister Hubert Vedrine said on Wednesday.

Vedrine said he and Germany's Joschka's Fischer would team up on Thursday evening in Manila with Finland's Erkki Tuomioja for meetings with Philippine officials and government hostage negotiators.

France, Germany and Finland are the three European Union countries with citizens being held captive on the southern island of Jolo.

The hostages originally totaled 21 but the number has burgeoned after the rebels detained 13 Filipino evangelists, three French television crew and a German reporter who tried to see the captives earlier this month.

A Malaysian forest ranger among the original 21 abducted from a Malaysian diving resort on April 23 has been freed. The group includes eight other Malaysians, three Germans, two French nationals, two Finns, two Filipinos and a Lebanese.

The guerrillas are also holding two Filipino school teachers and a teenage boy abducted on nearby Basilan island in March.

Faced with tough rebel demands, Manila suspended talks in early June, leaving only local emissaries to keep up contact with the rebels.

Officials earlier said the Abu Sayyaf wanted US$1.0 million per hostage. Although Manila says it is opposed to paying ransom, officials have said they believe the issue will boil down to a question of money and how much.

The government has rejected the rebels' main political demand -- the establishment of an Islamic state in the south of the mainly Catholic Philippines.

Hussain said the government panel would seek the release of everybody but "of course, we will give priority to those who were snatched earlier", referring to the hostages seized in Malaysia.

Speculation was rife that the rebels might free at least one or some hostages shortly as a "gift" to provincial governor Abdusakur Tan, a member of Manila's panel, who is celebrating his birthday on Thursday. Andang had worked for Tan before he fled to the hills.

Meanwhile, the Philippine government rejected on Wednesday demands by extremist group holding 40 hostages to pull security forces out of territory regained from the country's biggest separatist group.

The Abu Sayyaf had warned it would harm 13 Christian preachers among hostages being held in the southern Philippines if government troops were not withdrawn from areas once held by the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) by July 17.

Defense Secretary Orlando Mercado said on Wednesday the Abu Sayyaf could not dictate the movements of the Philippine military.

"The military operations are not to be determined by the Abu Sayyaf. It is not to be influenced by calls of the terrorists that we pull out," Mercado told reporters here.

The Abu Sayyaf warned on Monday of "negative repercussions" against flamboyant preacher Wilde Almeda and his 12 followers from the Jesus Miracle Crusade if troops did not pull out from the MILF headquarters and other rebel bases captured by the government.