MANILA: The Philippine government will resume peace talks with Muslim separatist rebels next month in neighboring Malaysia, an official statement said today.

Technical discussions between Manila and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) would begin in Kuala Lumpur on April 16, said President Gloria Arroyo's chief negotiator Silvestre Afable.

The talks had been stalled by the death due to natural causes in mid-2003 of Salamat Hashim, who founded the largest Islamic guerrilla force in the Philippines in 1978.

As the talks were in hiatus, the government grew increasingly concerned about the activities of foreign Islamic militants who allegedly trained in terrorist activities in camps hosted by renegade MILF commanders.

Afable said he met with Hashim's replacement, the MILF's military commander Murad Ebrahim, in the southern town of Sultan Kudarat on Thursday to set the timetable for the Malaysia talks.

"Chairman Murad confirmed that the MILF technical team has been organized and is ready to be fielded for the talks," Afable said in the statement.

"The MILF chairman is committed to a sincere partnership with the government to work for a final solution to the conflict and I have the utmost confidence that the MILF central committee and the MILF peace panel will bring this goal to its logical conclusion," Afable added.

He said the Kuala Lumpur talks would deal with Muslim claims over "ancestral domain issues" on the Muslim homeland of Mindanao island.

The country's Muslim minority says its members were dispossessed of their land after Spain and later the United States, the former colonial powers, introduced the western concept of titling property.

The MILF has an estimated 12,000 guerrilla forces.

Faction group

A second separatist guerrilla faction, the Moro National Liberation Front, signed a peace treaty with Manila in 1986 and settled for limited self-rule in one section of Mindanao.

"We have a consensus with the Malaysian government that abundant goodwill has been invested in the ceasefire, which has held firm for a year and a half to move on to the meat of the negotiations," Afable said.

He said the meeting with Murad was arranged by Othman Abdul Razak, director general of Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi's office. Othman also attended the meeting.

"Dato Othman conveyed to us the unremitting commitment of the Malaysian government to host the peace talks, lead the international monitoring team (that is observing the ceasefire) and accept MILF nominees for capacity-building programs in Malaysia," Afable said.