Ramos aide meets Misuari

Tue, 04 Jul 1995 | Source: AFP

MANILA (AFP): President Fidel Ramos' chief aide held unannounced talks with the top leader of the Moslem insurgency in the southern Philippines last weekend in an attempt to speed up peace negotiations, government officials said yesterday.

Nur Misuari, whose Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) is holding peace talks with the government, met separately with Executive Secretary Ruben Torres and Interior Secretary Rafael Alunan in the eastern town of Maasin on Saturday, Torres announced here.

Torres said he and Misuari were classmates in school, and that President Fidel Ramos had instructed him to meet the rebel leader to reiterate "the seriousness of the president in reaching an early agreement to the peace talks."

The MNLF is now seeking autonomy on behalf of the large Moslem minority in the southern Philippines after a failed separatist uprising in the early 1970s.

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