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| President Benigno Aquino said there were still details to be settled |
The
Philippine government has reached a framework peace agreement with the
country's largest Muslim rebel group, President Benigno Aquino says.
The deal
follows long negotiations with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) to end
a 40-year conflict that has cost more than 120,000 lives.
It provides
for a new autonomous region in the south, where Muslims are a majority in a
mainly Catholic country.
The MILF is
"very happy" with the deal, a spokesman was quoted as saying.
The
agreement was reached after talks in Malaysia and is expected to be signed
formally next week in the Philippine capital, Manila.
"This
framework agreement paves the way for a final and enduring peace in
Mindanao," President Aquino said in a speech to announce the deal,
referring to the main southern region.
But he
added that "the work does not end here".
The MILF's
vice chairman for political affairs Ghazali Jaafar told AFP news agency:
"We are very happy. We thank the president for this."
President
Aquino said the new autonomous region would be named Bangsamoro, after the
Moros living there, and acknowledged that the current autonomous region in the
same area was a "failed experiment".
It is hoped
that the agreement could be implemented on the ground by the end of President
Aquino's term in 2016.
Sunday's
agreement provides for the creation of a "transition commission"
tasked with drafting a law to implement the framework deal.
Negotiations
with the MILF over the last 15 years repeatedly stalled and were interrupted by
violence.
The MILF,
created after a split with another rebel group in 1977, had earlier dropped its
demand for an independent Muslim state.
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