The Malaysian government vowed Thursday to continue brokering the stalled peace talks in Kuala Lumpur between Manila and the separatist Moro Islamic Liberation front (MILF) rebels, despite its scheduled pull-out this month of its monitors from the Mindanao conflict zones.
Malaysian military chief General Tan Sri Abdul Aziz made this assurance during his closed-door meeting Thursday morning with his Filipino counterpart General Hermogenes Esperon Jr. at the military headquarters of Camp Aguinaldo in Quezon City, Metro Manila.
" The peace process will continue, as far as Malaysia is concerned, we are not abandoning the peace process in the south (of Philippines),"said Aziz after meeting with Esperon. During the meeting, they discussed details of phased withdrawal of Malaysian monitors before their term ends on October 1.
Aziz also hinted at possible forming of another International Monitoring Team which he said would be "very effective".
Aziz arrived in Manila Wednesday night amid concerns that withdrawal of the bulk of Malaysian monitors and Brunei volunteers guarding the ceasefire between the Philippine government and the MILF since 2004 would result in the collapse of the truce in Mindanao.
Aziz emphasized that the Malaysian-led international monitoring team composed of unarmed troopers and volunteers from Brunei, Libya, Canada, and Japan will all pull out from their posts by September 1.
Malaysian Foreign Minister Rais Yatim said last month Malaysia plans not to send more troops or other personnel to Mindanao once the current mandate of its monitoring team ends in September.
Though Yatim did not elaborate on the reasons for the potential pullout, over the years Malaysian officials have been threatening to withdraw its peace-keepers for lack of apparent sincerity between Philippine government and the 12,000-member rebel group to ink a final peace agreement.
The MILF, fighting for a Muslim state in southern Philippines since its founding in 1978, signed a transient truce with the government in 2003 but peace talks have been on and off as two sides can not agree on the size and wealth of the proposed ancestral homeland for Muslims in Mindanao.
Rodolfo Garcia, the chief negotiator of the Philippine government, said stable and peaceful condition now enjoyed in the contingency-rife Mindanao "would not be very sure if the Malaysians end their presence."
On the other hand, senior members of MILF also admitted that the situation "will be very volatile" without a third party amid growing impatience among Moro rebels on the slow pace of talks.
Source: Xinhua
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