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Duterte set to talk peace with fugitive Moro leader
[AA.TR] The Philippines president is expected to soon meet and hold talks with runaway Moro leader Nur Misuari in the southern city of Davao to advance peace in the country's Moslem south.Rodrigo Duterte has said that the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) founder -- wanted for a siege on a southern city in which around 200 people died and tens of thousands were displaced -- would be given safe passage and has described him as one leader who maintains influence and stature among all Moro rebels. Duterte's government is in the process of consolidating all agreements with all Moro groups in an effort to finally achieve peace in the south. Late Tuesday, however, he rejected a plan by Misuari to bring his own men to Davao for talks. "That would not be possible anymore. First, he is facing charges and if at all he is allowed to go out, he cannot bring arms," the Philippine Daily Inquirer quoted Duterte as saying in a speech in Makati City, Metro Manila. "I don't care if he will do that, that would not bother me, but the fact is the military and the police will not allow it, and I won’t run roughshod with them if I insist it my way." Duterte has instead offered to fetch the 77-year-old from Sulu and bring him to Davao for talks, but has not said when such a meeting will take place. Misuari is wanted for staging a bloody siege in the majority Christian city of Zamboanga in 2013 to protest a grinding of the peace processor by rival group the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), which Misuari claims leaves Moslems in the country’s south shortchanged in comparison to an earlier MNLF peace deal. Posted by: Fred 2016-10-06 |
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