The New Nation - Internet Edition

AFP, Kuala Lumpur

Muslim separatists in the southern Philippines will sign a pact with Manila on Tuesday giving them control of large swathes of land, the Malaysian prime minister's department said.

The agreement grants the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) an autonomous region, which will have its own legal, banking and education systems, civil service and internal security force.

"Following several days of intensive negotiations, the ancestral domain agenda, the last and most contentious issue in the ongoing peace talks, was successfully concluded," the department said Sunday in a statement. "With a settlement achieved, formal peace talks can now resume after a lapse of five years," it said. The Malaysian government said a signing ceremony will be held in Kuala Lumpur on Tuesday. It will be witnessed by Philippines Foreign Secretary Alberto Romulo and his Malaysian counterpart Rais Yatim.

"It's all systems go for the signing of the agreement on August 5," MILF spokesman Eid Kabalu told AFP by phone from his base in Mindanao in the southern Philippines. "Our men on the ground want to see peace in Mindanao, and we have been talking for a long time already," he said.

The government of the proposed MILF-controlled area would have the power to send trade missions and enter into international economic arrangements, according to a draft of the pact obtained by the Philippine Daily Inquirer.

The proposed homeland will cover villages and municipalities in eight provinces in Mindanao, where the MILF has been waging a bloody rebellion since 1978.

The ancestral domain issue was the last remaining hurdle to a final political settlement that is expected to end the insurgency, which has claimed more than 120,000 lives.