Dureza leaves for OIC meet in Baku

According to OPAPP, Secretary Dureza will join Foreign Affairs Sec. Alberto Romulo in the annual meeting set this year on June 19-21 before proceeding to Oslo, Norway to attend an international peace forum.

Expected to be taken up in the Baku conference is the issue of the implementation of the 1996 peace agreement between the Philippine government and the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF).

The OIC last month dispatched an official mission to the Southern Philippines headed by Ambassador Sayed El-Masry, adviser to the OIC Secretary General, to assess the progress of the implementation of the 10-year-old peace deal.

The week-long Mindanao mission which began last May 18 included the member-nations of the OIC Committee of the Eight (C8), represented by their respective envoys here.

They include Amb. Salem Adem of Libya, Amb. Mohammed Ameen Wali of Saudi Arabia, Amb. Irzan Tandjung of Indonesia, Amb. Muhammad Abul Quashem of Bangladesh, Amb. Emaleen Abdul Rahman Teo of Brunei, and Charge d' Affaires Jaafar Wan Mahamud of Malaysia.

The government, it was learned, has continued to bid for observer status in the OIC to help open more avenues of official cooperation between the Philippines and the Islamic nations.

Together with Sec. Dureza in the Baku meeting is newly-sworn Undersecretary Nabil Tan, who on Thursday took his oath as Deputy Presidential Peace Adviser after President Gloria Arroyo officially appointed him to the post on May 29.

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