links: http://www.opapp.gov.ph/milf/news/leonen-urges-milf-counterparts-kl-%E2%80%98let%E2%80%99s-bring-home-framework-agreement%E2%80%99
Leonen urges MILF counterparts in KL: ‘Let’s bring home a framework agreement’
Speaking at the opening of the 31st round of Formal Exploratory Talks in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia Wednesday, Leonen underscored the optimism of the government that the remaining issues in the peace process will finally be resolved.
“In this round of talks, the government proposes to discuss the remaining contentious points that will go into our framework agreement,” Leonen said. “Although at first we may seem to take different positions on these issues, we know that both our negotiating panels have the capability and the willingness to be able to sufficiently exhaust our reasons in dialogue.”
“We thus propose that in this round, we take as our objective that we take home to our principals a completed product, a consensus draft, even a very rough draft with some options of a framework agreement for their serious consideration,” Leonen explained.
“We have set for ourselves a timetable that we hope to be able to achieve. We think this timetable will allow all of us to be able to take advantage of the propitious political environment that we are in, to definitively deliver our mutual political commitments to each other,” he added.
The four-day peace negotiations between the Philippine government and the MILF resumed today in this Malaysian capital amidst optimism expressed by both parties in recent weeks to be able to come up with a peace agreement soon.
“We seek that all guns be silenced permanently. And by all guns, we mean all guns. That it is these guns that will become a memory and that our disagreements, our disappointments and perhaps even our anger will never be again channeled to cause deaths in violent confrontation,” Leonen said. “We seek that our differences be settled in peaceful and deliberative fashion with the government at any level, which follows laws that have earned the respect of its constituents.”
Leonen cited the need to “make haste so that we can usher in the agreement that will set up the platforms so that we can not only build more trust and confidence amongst our constituents but catalyze the kind of societies that our peoples deserve.”
In his own opening statement, MILF chief negotiator Mohagher Iqbal echoed the positive note expressed by Leonen on the outcome of the peace talks.
“Today, the GPH-MILF peace negotiations are passing through a defining moment, a critical phase, which allows no complacency on the part of the parties,” Iqbal said.
For his part, Malaysian facilitator Tengku Dato Abd Ghafar Tengku Mohammed commended both sides for being “very serious in trying to solve the Mindanao problem.”
In his statement, Iqbal reiterated the commitment of the MILF to the prevailing ceasefire between the government and MILF forces. He stressed that the MILF had taken decisive action against groups that he described as “spoilers” to the peace process.
“Very clearly, these spoilers are mounting up their guns and gunning up on us and certainly if they had their way they wanted us to stop and fail. This aggression of the so-called BIFM-BIFF is a clear example,” Iqbal said.
“Their agenda as I mentioned previously was two-fold: to shame the government and the MILF and to stop the peace talks. What made their sinister acts doubly serious is that they are not acting alone,” he explained.
“The collisions of some personalities or groups are documented, but which I do not want to divulge details in this speech lest it will stir another complication.”
Iqbal said he was confident that the Philippine government and the military “given their good intelligence network, is fully aware of this development.” #
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