Gov't renews commitment to finalize peace discussion with MILF

From the Philippine News Agency (Mar 27): Gov't renews commitment to finalize peace discussion with MILF

Malacanang made an assurance on Wednesday that both the government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front could finish all the remaining issues in the peace talks as soon as possible.

In a press conference in Malacanang Wednesday, Presidential spokesman Edwin Lacierda explained President Aquino’s requests for time extension in discussing certain issues asking to move the exploratory talks to April instead of March.

“There are certain issues in the annexes that have to be addressed so we needed time… the President wanted more time to discuss the annexes, the remaining issues in the annexes,” Lacierda said.

“There are remaining issues in these annexes and by no means are we stopping. We just wanted to clear all the issues before we move to the next exploratory talks so we decided to ask for a resetting of the talks to April.”

Currently, there are two annexes that are in discussion, he said. There’s a draft annex already on wealth-sharing, power-sharing, as well as the normalization, he added.

The Palace official also made it clear that the Sabah conflict isn’t an issue in the ongoing peace discussion. The government’s primary concern is ironing out all the remaining issues in the annexes.

“Those things are going to be discussed on our end. And, as soon as we send them over by April, hopefully there will be further discussions, but it’s one of the reasons why we’d like to make sure that we try to finish the annexes at the soonest possible time.

In a briefer released by the Office of the Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process, the 37th Formal Exploratory Talks was postponed from March to April after the President requested for more time for the formal talks

It was originally scheduled to begin March 25, but the President requested the schedule to be reset to April next month.

OPAPP said the Philippine government panel conveyed the President’s request to the MILF and the Malaysian facilitators.

After a meeting on the President’s request, both sides issued a “firm commitment of the two parties to continue the talks in an expeditious manner,” OPAPP said.

http://www.pna.gov.ph/index.php?idn=&sid=&nid=&rid=511190