DAVAO CITY—Foreign Affairs Undersecretary Rafael Seguis, the government’s chief negotiator with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), said a formal meeting may be held in the next six weeks but expressed reservation that the date may be pushed back until both parties could smoothen out the composition of the International Contact Group (ICG).

The ICG is a separate group that the MILF want to be formed to ensure that any new agreement between the two parties becomes internationally binding.

The creation of the ICG was made a condition after the MILF expressed dismay that the mutually crafted memorandum of agreement on ancestral domain, that the two panels had initialed as indication of agreement, was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in August last year.

Both panels have started talking, either jointly or separately, with countries that might be interested to join the ICG, and Seguis said the composition should be mutually agreed upon by both panels.

The government has already talked with four countries but Seguis said it could not yet send formal invitations until both panels clarify certain issues, including their (ICG members’) role, if they will only be advisers or to support the talks. He declined to disclose the countries being tapped.

Gadzali Jaafar, MILF vice chairman for political affairs, also confirmed the likelihood of a formal meeting after the three informal meetings that have been held since June.

“That’s the assessment of Secretary Seguis…of imminent formal talks. To us, we can only say that it is very possible,” Jaafar said.

He said the MILF is concerned first on the ironing out of the composition and the giving of the mandate to the ICG, as well as the reconstitution of the same International Monitoring Team (IMT) led by Malaysia.

“We have identified these countries, but yes, I would agree with Seguis that we have to keep on exploring for others until we can get their confirmation,” he said.

He disagreed with Seguis’s view, however, when Seguis told reporters here that the government would have a new IMT “because the old IMT has already finished its [tour of duty] last year.”

“It’s mandate was not renewed, and thus they have to leave, because the talks have also collapsed that year. So we would have to seek another IMT,” he said.

The old IMT was formed by Malaysia, with military experts from Brunei and Libya and a lone economic expert from Japan comprising the 57-person team. The IMT has a mandate of only monitoring and investigating cease-fire violations.

Jaafar said, however, that the MILF prefers the same IMT and would negotiate with the government panel to agree to it. “Anyway, Malaysia did not say officially and privately that it would discontinue the mission of the IMT. We would like to renew that mandate,” he said.

“We would like to settle these two issues first, the ICG and the IMT, before we would conduct formal talks. We don’t like to leave these two issues unattended when we go to the negotiation table,” he said. “That’s why we cannot say for certain when the formal talks would start.”