Kuala Lumpur: The Philippine government reached an agreement today with the country's main Islamic separatist group on carving out boundaries for a Muslim homeland in the conflict-ridden south.

Philippine officials have wrangled for years with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front about the extent of a territory that would fall under Muslim control in the impoverished Mindanao region -- the scene of a bloody, decades-long insurrection by guerrilla groups such as the MILF.

"Demarcation (of the homeland's boundaries) has been agreed," Rodolfo Garcia, the chief Philippine government negotiator, told reporters at the end of two days of talks with MILF officials in Kuala Lumpur.

"It is one significant breakthrough we have achieved here," he said.

The two sides still have to craft the exact text of the agreement next month and sign the deal, likely in January, Garcia said.

The breakthrough ends an impasse over the "ancestral domain" agenda that had stalled formal peace negotiations since last year.

The issue is the biggest hurdle in efforts to forge a permanent peace pact that would replace a fragile 2003 cease-fire between Philippine authorities and the MILF in Mindanao, home to minority Muslims in the predominantly Roman Catholic Philippines.
Source : PTI