Manila seeks bilateral accord with Cambodia

The Philippine Government will call for the forging of a bilateral agreement with Cambodia, to pressure the latter from preventing groups from sending arms to political and terror groups in the Philippines, sources from the military and foreign affairs department told Gulf News.

"A bilateral agreement is being proposed to be forged by the two countries to seal efforts to stop arms landing to terror and separatist groups in the Philippines," said a senior official.

Manila's foreign ministry will undertake talks with a counterpart in Cambodia for this effort, said the official, adding that this agreement must be forged "before the end of the year".

Efforts to stop arms smuggling were undertaken as Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen said that weapons were smuggled from the kingdom to rebel groups in Sri Lanka, the Philippines and Myanmar in recent years.

"In past years, Cambodia used to be a place where weapons were taken to Sri Lanka for the Tamil group, to Philippines' Mindanao island...and for the Karen in Myanmar. We have some documents about this," said Hun Sen.

He did not mention the separatist group in Indonesia as a recipient of arms from Cambodia.

Meanwhile, the Armed Forces of the Philippines called for intelligence groups to further investigate various political groups which reportedly received arms from Cambodia, said a senior military officer.

"The groups being investigated are not yet cooperating with us, as expected," the officer said. Suspected groups are the communist New Peoples Army (NPA) which operates nationwide, the separatist Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), and the possibly the hostage-taking and terror group Abu Sayyaf, the officer said.

The MILF and the Abu Sayyaf Group are based in the southern Philippines, The Abu Sayyaf has active links with the Jemaah Islamiyah, the alleged Southeast Asian conduit of the Al Qaida terror network of Osama Bin Laden.

The Philippines and Cambodia's foreign ministries are also trying to identity of the groups in Cambodia that are sending arms to the Philippines, said the officer who refused to give more details.

With inputs from Raffy Jimenez