DAR AL HARB / ISLAM - PHILLIPINES: THE PHILIPINE GOVERNMENT WILL REVIEW THE PREVIOUS HUDNA & SIGN UP FOR THE NEXT ONE, THE JIHAD CONTINUES, A SUCCESS

Philippines, OIC to review 11-year-old peace pact with Muslim rebels

MANILA, Philippines: The Organization of the Islamic Conference and the Philippines will meet in July with leaders of a former Muslim rebel group to review an 11-year-old peace pact amid complaints implementation has been slow, officials said Friday.

One sticking point is the continued detention of Moro National Liberation Front chairman Nur Misuari, who signed a historic 1996 peace agreement with the government but was arrested in 2001 after his followers launched a deadly attack.

"He is the chairman of the MNLF and he should be there in all the talks regarding the peace agreement," Sayed El-Masry, the OIC special envoy, told reporters after meeting with Misuari and government officials in Manila.

El-Masry said the OIC asked the Philippines to allow Misuari to travel to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, for the July meeting, and that Presidential Peace Adviser Jesus Dureza and Interior Secretary Ronaldo Puno promised to help.

Misuari's lawyers will ask for a dismissal of the case if no evidence is produced, El-Masry said.

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Philippine government and Muslim rebels to meet in Jeddah

MANILA (Reuters) - Representatives from the Philippine government, the country's oldest Muslim rebel group and the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) will meet in Saudi Arabia in July to try and salvage a key peace deal.

Sayyed Kassem El-Masry, an adviser to the OIC secretary-general, also said on Friday that the organization, which brokered the 1996 peace agreement between Manila and the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF), expected the MNLF's detained chairman, Nur Misuari, to attend the July 10-15 meeting.

"He has to be there," El-Masry told reporters in Manila, where he met with government officials to hammer out preparations for the conference and reiterated the OIC's call for Misuari, currently under house arrest in the capital, to be released.

"We made our good offices with the government in order to expedite this legal process to allow Misuari to attend," El-Masry said. "We hope that by July this legal hurdle will be finished and he's able to attend."

Heralded as the solution to decades of bitter fighting between Muslim separatists and the mainly Catholic central government in Manila, the 1996 agreement floundered due to a lack of funds, poor implementation and opposition from hardliners.

Manila would like to salvage the pact before any deal with a rival rebel group, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), and end a conflict that has killed more than 120,000 people and stunted development in a resource-rich region.

Talks with the MILF have been stalled since May over the size and wealth of a proposed ancestral homeland for 3 million Muslims in the south.

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1) Philippines, OIC to review 11-year-old peace pact with Muslim rebels

2) Philippine government and Muslim rebels to meet in Jeddah