Philippines, rebels resume peace talks this week

MANILA, Sep 4 (Reuters) The Philippine government and the country's largest Islamic separatist group are due to resume informal peace talks this week in Malaysia, about three months after negotiations stalled over differences on territory.

Negotiators for the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) left for Kuala Lumpur today to meet Manila's peace panel to thrash out the specifics of a proposed enlarged Muslim homeland that is meant to end an insurgency in the southern Philippines.

''We're ready to listen to the government's proposal to move the negotiations forward,'' said Mohaqher Iqbal, the rebels' chief negotiator.

''We're also reviewing the progress of the talks. It may be moving at a snail's pace, but the two sides were being cautious to avoid mistakes.'' The government of the largely Catholic country and the MILF have given up hope of signing a deal this year because of delays in striking a consensus on the wealth and size of a proposed homeland for about 3 million Muslims in the south.

More than 120,000 people have died in the Muslim insurgency since the late 1960s. The Philippines is also fighting the world's longest-running communist rebellion.

A member of the government's peace panel told Reuters Manila was determined to wrap up negotiations before congressional and local elections in May 2007, suggesting the peace deal could be used as an election platform.

But some analysts doubted whether the two sides could sign an agreement in the next six months or even during the term of President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, who is due to step down in June 2010.

''The government and the rebels are light-years apart in their position over the ancestral domain issue,'' Eliseo Mercado, a Roman Catholic priest and former head of Notre Dame University in the southern port city of Cotabato.

Mercado, who was involved in previous peace negotiations with Muslim rebels, said the MILF wanted sovereignty over Muslim lands but the government was not prepared to grant such powers because of constitutional limitations.

Mercado said Arroyo also lacked the political will to hammer out a deal. By comparison, former President Fidel Ramos risked his political fortune to strike a compromise with the Moro National Liberation Front, a more secular rebel group, in 1996.

''President Arroyo may have the vision but she may lack the courage to push for a political deal with the MILF,'' Mercado, who was posted to Rome more than two years ago, told Reuters.

''The current talks with the MILF was a very unpopular issue among politicians and businessmen in the south as well as other sectors in government.'' Reuters KR DB0944