Moro secessionist rebels holding peace talks with the Philippine government are holding separate negotiations to rejoin a Muslim faction that has already made peace with Manila, officials said Thursday.
The contacts between the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) and the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) are being made as the MILF conducts talks with the Philippine government in Malaysia, they said.
The MILF resulted from a 1978 splinter of the MNLF, which signed a peace treaty with the government in 1995 to end its 24-year separatist rebellion in the southern Philippines.
"They have not merged, but there are talks for the MILF and the MNLF to merge," President Gloria Arroyo's spokesman Rigoberto Tiglao told reporters -- MANILA (AFP)
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