(Eagle News) — Peace negotiations between the government and the Communist rebels may resume in July.
This is according to President Rodrigo Duterte himself, who spoke before newly elected barangay captains in Central Visayas on Thursday, June 7.
A media report quoted Communist Party of the Philippines Founding Chairman Jose Maria Sison as saying, however, that the talks were expected to resume on June 28 in Oslo, Norway.
A resumption of peace talks, though, would be a turnaround in the seemingly on-off relations between both parties.
Last year, an angry Duterte called off the talks following the death of a 4-month-old baby in an ambush by the New People’s Army in Bukidnon.
Sison then lashed out at President Duterte, calling him the “number one terrorist in the Philippines.”
Early April, Duterte ordered Cabinet officials to work toward the resumption of peace talks, a statement Sison himself welcomed.
He urged Sison to return to the Philippines from his exile in The Netherlands so they could talk, promising to shoulder the Communist leader’s accommodation, among others.
Sison said he was willing to come home, on the condition that there would be a significant development in the peace negotiations.