Norway has agreed to continue brokering the talks between the Philippines and the Maoist rebels. Government negotiators will try to break a six-year impasse and seek informal meetings with the rebels this year, said Alex Padilla, a prominent human rights lawyer who was appointed chief government negotiator.

Presidential peace process adviser Teresita Deles said the creation of the five-member negotiating panel headed by Padilla was a major step in government efforts to tame the 41-year rebellion. She added that “the journey to peace will not be easy.”

More than 120,000 combatants and civilians have died in the rural-based rebellion that has afflicted nearly all of the Philippines’ 81 provinces. It is considered to be the impoverished Southeast Asian nation’s most serious security threat and a major obstacle to economic development. The Philippines also has been grappling with Muslim rebels and Al-Qaeda-linked militants in its volatile south.

Peace talks brokered by Norway have been suspended since 2004 after the rebels accused the Manila government of instigating their inclusion on US and European terrorist lists. The rebels also are demanding the release of several left-wing activists and guerrillas.

Padilla said the government will study how to deal with the rebel inclusion in US and EU terrorist blacklists, but added that this was a sovereign decision of those countries.

Padilla, currently a Health Department undersecretary, said he was in favor of freeing from custody some detainees, including 43 people the military captured in February outside Manila on suspicion of membership in the New People’s Army, the armed wing of the underground Communist Party of the Philippines.

The detainees, who have been charged with illegal possession of weapons and explosives, have denied the allegations. Newly elected President Benigno Aquino III has sought a review of their criminal cases to determine whether they can be freed.

Padilla said he was optimistic a peaceful settlement of the bloody rebellion can be attained under the politically liberal Aquino, who he said was himself “a victim of injustice.”

Aquino’s late parents are revered democracy icons. His father, an opposition senator, was assassinated in 1983 while in military custody under former dictator Ferdinand Marcos. His killing at the Manila airport helped spark the 1986 “people power” revolt that ousted Marcos and swept into power Corazon Aquino — the president’s mother.

“The greatest opportunity to forge peace is now,” Padilla told The Associated Press.

The Communist Party of the Philippines said in a July statement that the rebels were willing to resume formal talks with Aquino’s government.

Although the 5,000-strong rebels have been weakened by infighting, surrenders and battle setbacks, they have pressed on with attacks on military and police units.

In August, five soldiers were killed in a road ambush in the southern Philippines, three days after a central Philippine attack killed eight police officers.