In a statement released on Saturday, the MILF said of the four states that have been officially invited to join the ICG, only the UK, Japan and Turkey have shown positive of interest, China’s Xinhua news agency reported over the weekend.
The MILF and the Philippine government has in recent months been trying to restart peace talks, which were suspended last year after the rebels launched a series of deadly raids on Christian communities in Mindanao.
The attacks claimed scores of lives and displaced more than half a million civilians, about 300,000 of whom remain in evacuation centers, according to international aid agencies. The 12,000-strong MILF has been waging a rebellion for an independent Islamic state in the southern third of the mainly Catholic Philippines since 1978.
In September, Philippine President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo visited Turkey at the invitation of Turkish President Abdullah Gül. She also had talks in İstanbul with the secretary-general of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), Ekmeleddin İhsanoğlu, to discuss updates in the Philippines’ bid for observer status in the organization.
