ZAMBOANGA CITY, Philippines, 23 August 2004 — A meeting scheduled for next week between government and Moro Islamic Liberation Liberation Front (MILF) peace negotiators in Kuala Lumpur had been deferred, the separatist group said yesterday.

“The negotiations are postponed and we have to wait for new schedules,” MILF spokesman Eid Kabalu told Arab News a day after Malaysia announced that it was sending a team to help monitor the truce in the southern Philippines.

Kabalu would not say if the postponement had something to do with clashes last week between troops and rebels in Maguindanao province that left 3 people dead on both sides. The military has accused MILF fighters of attacking army soldiers who were investigating the murder of two civilians in Dapiawan village in the town of Ampatuan.

But Kabalu said the fighting was between a group of armed men and pro-government militias and not the MILF. “The MILF was not involved in this fighting. It was a long time feud between the armed men and the militias,” he said.

He admitted, however, that some of the men involved in the fighting were MILF members from a community involved in the feud.

The MILF last week said both sides were to discuss the rules for the deployment of international cease-fire observers in Mindanao and the withdrawal of criminal charges against dozens of MILF leaders, including its chieftain Murad Ebrahim, who were implicated in deadly bombings in Davao City in 2002 that left dozens of civilians dead and wounded.

It said it would also demand total pullout of government soldiers from Buliok, a mountain complex near North Cotabato province previously used as rebel headquarters.

Libya’s Ambassador to Manila, Salem Adem, was quoted recently by Singapore press that the formal peace talks between the Philippines and the MILF would be held in Malaysia in December.

Libya and Malaysia, both influential members of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), are actively helping in the peace talks and have played a key role in the release of several foreigners kidnapped by rebels in Mindanao.

President Gloria Arroyo resumed peace talks with the MILF in 2002, a year after ousted President Joseph Estrada ordered a military assault on the rebel’s main headquarters, the Camp Abubakar as-Siddique, in Manguindanao.