MANILA: The Philippines said yesterday that peace talks with communist rebels had collapsed and a target of ending the decades-long insurgency by 2016 was impossible to achieve.
Philippine President Benigno Aquino’s administration is looking for a “new approach” following nearly three years of failed negotiations and a fresh surge in deadly violence, chief government negotiator Alex Padilla said.
“We are at an impasse now. Whether we talk or not, the same violence continues, nothing has changed. So why will we force ourselves to talk?” Padilla said.
Aquino had said he wanted to seal a peace deal to end the 44-year insurgency, which has claimed an estimated 30,000 lives, before his term ended in 2016.
When asked about the timeframe, Padilla said: “That is gone.”
The government and the rebels had initially raised hopes in early 2011 that they were on the right track when they announced after top-level talks in Norway that both sides were committed to signing a peace deal by June 2012.
But negotiations barely progressed after that.
Padilla blamed the Netherlands-based communist leadership, the National Democratic Front, for the failure, accusing it of setting new and impossible conditions for talks.
He said this had been a tactic of the rebels in more than two decades of peace talks with previous administrations, and questioned their sincerity in seeking peace.
Padilla said the government did want to re-open negotiations at some point.
AFP
