MANILA: The Philippines and Muslim rebels will resume talks next week aimed at ending one of Asia's longest insurgencies, with both sides hoping to finalise a deal by May, negotiators said Wednesday.
Philippine President Benigno Aquino had authorised the new round of talks with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), after postponing negotiations in late March so he could have more time to study the planned pact, they said.
"We are at the home-stretch. We are working on a target to finish all the annexes (outstanding issues) and a final deal before the elections on May 13," chief government negotiator Miriam Coronel Ferrer told reporters in Manila.
The Philippines goes to the polls in May to choose more than 18,000 officials, including half the Senate and the entire membership of parliament's lower chamber, the House of Representatives.
The elections are crucial to Aquino's hopes of ending the rebellion, because congress would have to pass a law approving the peace deal.
Ferrer said the next round of talks would start on Monday in Kuala Lumpur, the capital of Malaysia that has for 15 years hosted on-again, off-again talks between the MILF and various Philippine administrations.
Aquino's government agreed in October on a road map with the MILF that envisions a new autonomous Muslim region in Mindanao, the southern third of the mainly Catholic nation of 100 million.
The MILF, which has about 12,000 armed followers, has been struggling since the early 1970s for self rule.
The conflict has claimed an estimated 150,000 lives, although most of the deaths occurred in the 1970s and ceasefires put in place for the past decade to allow peace talks have largely held.
MILF chief negotiator MohagherIqbal also expressed confidence that a final agreement could be reached over the next few weeks.
"I believe it will be signed because there is no other way forward, except to finish all the annexes," Iqbal said.
Both negotiators spoke at an event in Manila where members of a 15-member "transition commission" tasked to draft a law creating the autonomous region began its preliminary work.
Once a final peace deal is signed, the government is hoping congress will pass the law to approve it before then end of 2014. After that areas included in the planned autonomous region would need to endorse it in a plebiscite. (AFP)
