RP peace talks enter final stage

RP peace talks enter final stage

PHILIPPINES: Negotiations to end the Philippines' decades old Muslim insurgency in the southern region of Mindanao have reached their final stages, officials from both sides said on Tuesday.

Government and rebel negotiators had settled about 80 percent of issues relating to "ancestral domain", or the minority's right to profit from the resources of their traditional area, said Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) leader Murad Ebrahim.

The 12,000-member MILF, founded in 1978, is the last major Muslim separatist guerrilla group in Mindanao, a resource-rich but troubled region about twice the size of Belgium. Manila signed a peace treaty with another faction, the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF), in 1996.

President Gloria Arroyo hopes a peace deal with the MILF would isolate Islamic militants with alleged ties to the al-Qaeda network who have used the lawless region as a sanctuary and training base.

Ebrahim stressed that the MILF will not settle for autonomy status and fall into the same trap as the MNLF, from which is split in 1978.

Opting for limited self-rule, the MNLF dropped its independence bid in 1996. An autonomous Muslim region was created, made up of five Muslim-majority provinces, but the area remains mired in poverty after the rebels refused to disarm, discouraging investments. -- AFP