MANILA, Dec 23: The Philippines made a fresh push to end 40 years of Muslim secessionist conflict in the country’s south by forming a new negotiating panel on Tuesday, saying it hoped to resume peace talks in early 2009.

Two former lawmakers and a Muslim who is part of President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo’s cabinet have been named to a panel that will try to convince the largest Muslim rebel group in the south, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), to lay down their arms.

All three are based in southern Mindanao island, where about 120,000 people have been killed in a conflict that has scared potential investors from extracting huge deposits of oil, natural gas and minerals.

The Philippines is a mainly Catholic country. “We are still assembling the pieces to get the peace process started again in a way that upholds our commitment to peace,” said Hermogenes Esperon, a retired general and Arroyo’s peace adviser, who is not part of the panel. He said talks could resume early next year once both parties agreed to sit down.

But Mohaqher Iqbal, the MILF’s chief negotiator, said he doubted whether talks could resume soon.

“Until now, we have not received any response from Malaysia with regard to the resumption of talks,” Iqbal said, adding that Kuala Lumpur, which has been facilitating talks since 2001, should inform both parties when negotiations are to be resumed.“Our position has not changed.

We’ll only negotiate based on the ancestral domain agreement that we failed to sign in

Kuala Lumpur in August,” Iqbal said.

Negotiations between Manila and the MILF bogged down in August after a deal to expand an existing Muslim autonomous region on Mindanao was stopped by the Supreme Court.

Enraged rogue elements of the MILF then attacked Catholic-dominated communities, burning homes and farms and killing civilians, forcing the army to launch offensives. The government then decided to end peace talks with the MILF.

More than 300 people have died in about four months of fighting in six provinces on Mindanao, displacing 700,000 people.

Most of those displaced have returned home as fighting eased in the last three weeks, but 60,000 to 70,000 remain in temporary shelter because their homes and farms were destroyed.—Reuters