CAMP DARAPANAN, SHARIFF Kabunsuan, Philippines — The Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) on Wednesday said it was expecting to sign a memorandum of agreement on territory with the government in December.
The issue was the biggest stumbling block to the signing of a peace agreement between the government and the Moro rebels, and had caused a deadlock in the talks.
But last week, Secretary Jesus Dureza, presidential assistant on the peace process, announced that the deadlock had been broken.
But Dureza declined to elaborate.
“We expect the signing of the memorandum of agreement on ancestral domain by December this year,” Mohagher Iqbal, MILF chief negotiator, told reporters here on Wednesday.
Iqbal said the government had agreed to include more villages in the Bangsamoro Juridical Entity, the future Moro territory.
With the government agreeing to the MILF proposal for the inclusion of more villages into the territory, many of the problems hounding the peace talks had already been resolved, he said.
“Seventy percent of our demand in the territorial aspect of the ancestral domain was granted by the government,” Iqbal said.
But he declined to state what was actually agreed upon or how large the proposed Moro territory would be.
“It is confidential. What’s important now is that the negotiations are moving forward and we will just tackle some remaining issues,” Iqbal said.
He said the remaining “30 percent of unresolved issues” would be tackled when the exploratory talks resumes on November 14-17 in Kuala Lumpur.
“Right now, we still do not know when we will sign the peace agreement or what we call the political settlement. However, we and the government are still working on it,” Iqbal said.
Eid Kabalu, MILF civil-military affairs chief, told reporters in a separate briefing that even with the signing of a final peace agreement, the Moro group will not lay down its firearms.
“We will create our own security force within the proposed homeland,” Kabalu said. Jeoffrey Maitem, Inquirer Mindanao
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