World Bulletin, News Desk | Friday, 24 July 2009 16:51

Moro Muslims want an international guarantee to resume peace talks with Philippines after repeated failures of comlying the agreed deals.

Moro Muslims want an international guarantee to resume peace talks with Philippines after repeated failures of comlying the agreed deals.

The Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) welcomed Philippines’ order to halt military offensives in Muslim region to pave the way for the resumption of peace negotiations.

Mohaqher Iqbal, the chief peace negotiator and who had called for a truce earlier this month, said the order was a positive development.

An government official said that the army and the Philippine National Police were ordered to draft guidelines for the implementation of the ceasefire.

Iqbal said on Friday they will only resume peace talks if an international body guarantees an autonomy deal with the Philippine government.

The conflict resumed after supreme court of the Philippine declared the agreement illegal on August 4 last year two parties agreed to sign, that would end four decades of armed conflict between the Filipino state and the Moro Muslims.

According to the United Nations-backed report, the biggest new internal displacement of people last year was in Muslim region in Philippine, where 600,000 fled fighting with government and MILF.

Iqbal said he would order commanders to hold fire starting Saturday, adding an international guarantee was needed for a resumption of peace talks that any outcome of negotiations would be implemented.

He has previously mentioned the participation of the Organization of the Islamic Conference and the United Nations, however, the government was unwilling to such a proposal.

“We are very clear to the government: Unless a certain mechanism is in place, we won’t talk to the government anymore because we don’t trust the government any more,” he told DWIZ radio.

“We cannot go directly to the discussion of the political settlement.”

Christian politicians defied the agreed deal and asked the high court to block it, provoking the conflict.

The population of Muslims is about 12 million. Between the years 1450 and 1515, two Islamic principalities were founded on the islands of Sulu and Mindanao. Islam came to the Philippines in the 13th century 200 years before Christianity did.