By Keith Bacongco
davaotoday.com
COTABATO CITY The peace talks between the government and Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) is now deadlocked as both parties failed to iron out some “consensus points” during the exploratory talks last week in Kuala Lumpur.
MILF chief negotiator Mohagher Iqbal, in an interview, said the recent two-day exploratory talks ended without any breakthroughs.
“We were not able to finish it. We failed to agree on some consensus points. But is still moving forward and still on track, Iqbal said. September this year still remains as a target of the signing of final peace agreement.”
“Although it (the target date for the signing) could be moved because it is still tentative, that will depend on the process as well as on the situation,” he added.
Iqbal declined to give more details on the consensus points. “I cannot give details, but again, we are moving forward. We have been expecting a rough sailing in this final stretch of the peace process. We are approaching the peace process as a process.”
Both parties are now on the final stretch of resolving the issue on the ancestral domain, which Iqbal had earlier described as the most contentious part of the peace process.
The MILF has been waging for an independent Islamic state in Mindanao since it broke away from Nur Misuari-led Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) in 1977.
In a separate statement posted on the front’s official website, Iqbal hinted that the recent talks even before the two parties went to Malaysia knew already that they were moving toward the “peak of the talks” and therefore rough-sailing and hard bargaining are expected along the way.
Jun Mantawil, head of the MILF peace panel secretariat, also confirmed that both parties failed to hurdle a single thorny issue, saying that both parties have not succeeded to hammer out all the finer points of the basic principles or “consensus points,” which they had earlier agreed on.
“(There are) simply too many issues to handle in a limited timeframe of barely two days,” Mantawil said in a statement posted on the MILF’s website, www.luwaran.com.
Mantawil declined to give more details, saying: “It is not yet time to divulge details since the talks are inconclusive and the panels have yet to meet again soon.”
He did not give the dates for the resumption. Both parties did not issue any joint statement in deference to the next round of informal talks. (Keith Bacongco/davaotoday.com)
