MILF threatens to back out of talks

Manila: A former secessionist Filipino-Muslim group threatened to back out from a 14-year-old peace talks with the Philippine government, saying that government negotiator should offer concrete expanded areas and not just the principle of enhanced self-governance for Filipino-Muslims in the southern Philippines, a rebel leader said.

"We feel we are [still] colonised [despite] the peace talks and the presence of an existing autonomous area for Filipino-Muslims in Minadnao," Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) chairman Murad Ebrahim was quoted as saying in radio reports.

Analysing the position of the MILF and the Philippine government negotiators with regards to proposed self-governance and expanded autonomous area for Filipino-Muslims in the south, Murad said, "[They are so far apart] like heaven and earth."

Murad also shared the impression given by MILF renegade commander Umbra Kato, who left the MILF because of his perception that the ongoing peace negotiation was an "exercise in futility".

Murad also demanded that negotiators should be more specific on concrete areas where enhanced self-governance can be done by Filipino-Muslims in south.