Negotiators from the Philippine government and the country's largest Muslim rebel group signed a deal on Thursday to sustain peace talks and give European states a bigger role in efforts to end the long-running conflict. Since 1997, Manila has been negotiating on-and-off with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) to end a Muslim separatist rebellion on southern Mindanao island that has killed 120,000 people and displaced 2 million in the last four decades. The term of the current government ends on June 30, and Benigno Aquino III is set to be officially proclaimed the country's next president early next week. During two days of talks in Kuala Lumpur that ended on Thursday, the sides agreed to maintain peace during the political transition. Aquino, who was not part of this week's talks, has said he would continue negotiations with both Muslim separatists and Maoist-led guerrillas across the country, and has said he wants to encourage investment in resource-rich areas such as Mindanao. Malaysia has since 2001 facilitated the peace talks, which cover deals on wealth and power sharing and the expansion of territories to be covered by an autonomous area for Muslims in the south of the mainly Roman Catholic country. “We have agreed to find new formulas to reach a peaceful political solution to the Mindanao problem based on just peace and equal treatment of our identities and rights as a Moro nation,” said Mohagher Iqbal, the MILF's chief negotiator. He said Norwegian peace monitors were expected to join a team made up of unarmed soldiers and police officers from Brunei, Libya, Japan and Malaysia to oversee the ceasefire. European Union member-states have also agreed to raise funds to feed and rebuild homes for about 30,000 families, who remained in temporary shelter areas following an outbreak of fighting in 2008 after a deal to create a Muslim ancestral homeland with wide political and economic powers was blocked by the Supreme Court.
