Secretary General of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu said a framework agreement inked Monday between Philippine government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front offered an invaluable opportunity for peace and economic development in the country's south.
"I hope that the agreement will bring peace and economic development to the region," Ihsanoglu told The Anadolu Agency in Manila where he attended the penning ceremony of the preliminary agreement -- a roadmap reached after 15 years of negotiations brokered by Malaysia to a final settlement which would allow for an autonomous region administered by minority Muslims in the south of this predominantly Catholic country.
The agreement was signed in a ceremony in Manila's Malacanang Presidential Palace with the participation of President Benigno Aquino III and Liberation Front leader AL Haj Murad Ebrahim. Also present at the ceremony were Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak as well as heads of foreign diplomatic missions including Turkish Ambassadress to Philippines Hatice Pinar Isik.
Nearly 120 thousand have been killed and two million people have been forced to leave their homes in the 40-year-old conflict.
