The Philippine government and Moro separatist rebel negotiators said they had reached a preliminary deal on the controversial issue of ancestral lands. The talks between representatives of the Philippine government and the rebels to end a 40-year armed conflict in the southern Philippine region of Mindanao ended on an optimistic note on Feb 7. Two days of "exploratory" peace talks in Malaysia ended with both parties "successfully wrapping up the consensus points of the ancestral domain issue," negotiators from the Manila government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front said in a joint statement. "The ancestral domain agreement may be signed by late March 2006, simultaneously with the inception of the formal talks," they said at the end of a meeting at the resort town of Port Dickson , south of the Malaysian capital Kuala Lumpur.
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