Manila misses peace deadline with Muslim rebels

MANILA, Oct 31 (Reuters) Manila has asked to extend, for a second time, a deadline for a fresh initiative to revive stalled peace talks with the Philippines' largest Muslim rebel group after failing to issue any proposals by the end of October.

The Philippine government has been talking with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) for a decade to try to end a vicious separatist conflict and the MILF said today it would likely demand that this latest extension would ''be the last''.

Negotiations, brokered by Malaysia, have stalled since June because of differences over the size and wealth of a proposed homeland for about three million Muslims in the south of the mainly Catholic country.

The MILF said the government's chief negotiator Silvestre Afable had asked for an extension until November 15 to allow him to present a new proposal on the territory to President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo. The original deadline was September 30.

''In his letter, (Afable) cited the need for their draft to be presented to the president and the cabinet to seek their ''full consensus'' on their ''emerging position'','' the MILF said in a statement on its Web site, www.luwaran.com.

Muslim rebels have accused Arroyo of lacking sincerity to end a conflict that has killed more than 120,000 people since the late 1960s.

Analysts suspect the president, who has survived two impeachment attempts, is reluctant to agree a deal which could upset politicians loyal to her in the south and risk their chances in next May's local and congressional elections.

The MILF wants to add more than 1,000 villages to an existing five-province Muslim autonomous region in the resource-rich south without a referendum. The government has said it must put the demand to a popular vote.

Many of the villages earmarked for membership of a Muslim homeland lie far from the existing autonomous region and are surrounded by Christian territory.

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