DAVAO City––Japanese Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida reaffirmed Japan’s commitment to peace and development in Mindanao, particularly in the Bangsamoro, during his meeting Saturday with officials of the Philippine government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF). A report from the Philippine Embassy in Tokyo dated June 20 said Kishida met with National Commission on Muslim Filipinos (NCMF) Secretary Yasmin Busran-Lao, and Philippine Ambassador to Japan Manuel Lopez, and MILF chair Al Haj Murad Ebrahim, at the sidelines of the Japan-organized “High-Level Seminar on Peacebuilding, National Reconciliation, and Democratization in Asia” at the United Nations University in Tokyo. Kishida welcomed the steady progress in the Bangsamoro peace process and the commitment demonstrated by the GPH and MILF, the report said.
He also reiterated Japan’s continued support for the Bangsamoro process and to help spur development in the new autonomous political entity, through initiatives such as J-BIRD Phase II, as pledged by no less than Prime Minister Shinzo Abe during his Summit Meeting with President Aquino in Tokyo last 4 June. Japan is a member of the International Monitoring Team (IMT) and the International Contact Group (ICG) that are assisting the GPH-MILF peace process. It played a historic role in the history of the peace process by hosting that first meeting between President Aquino and MILF chair Murad on Augut 4, 2011 in Tokyo. In that two-hour meeting, both parties agreed to fast-track the peace process by signing a peace agreement within the first half of the six-year term of the Aquino administration (2010 to 2013) so that the second half (2013 to 2016) would be spent on implementation.
A second meeting in Japan took place on June 24, 2014, where the two leaders met for “15 to 20 minutes” in Hiroshima, just before the President delivered his keynote address at The Consolidation for Peace for Mindanao seminar. Accompanied by his peace panel chair, Mohagher Iqbal, Murad raised their “concerns” about the Malacanang-proposed revisions on the draft Bangsamoro Basic Law (BBL), a copy of which the MILF received a few days earlier. -mindanews
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