By Xinhua
Manila : The Philippine government and the country’s largest rebel group, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), will hold talks this week to pave a way for signing a final peace agreement, a government negotiator said Tuesday.
Jesus Dureza, the presidential adviser on peace process, told reporters that the upcoming round of talks would focus on the boundaries for a Muslim homeland in southern Philippines.
He said the two sides would present a draft memorandum of agreement on the ancestral domain before inking a final peace agreement.
The draft could be finalised after the negotiating panels meet in February next year, Dureza said.
The 12,000-member MILF, since its founding in late 1970s, has been fighting for the establishment of a Muslim homeland in southern Philippine region of Mindanao. It signed a truce with the government in 2001 but sporadic clashes remain as the truce was poorly enforced.