5th round of GPH-NDF talks set for May 27 to June 1 in The Netherlands

The next round of peace talks between the Philippine government and the communist-led National Democratic Front (NDF) will be held in Noordwijk in the Netherlands from May 27 to June 1, the Norwegian Embassy announced on Tuesday.

In a statement, the embassy said the fifth round of the negotiations will be facilitated by the Norwegian Special Envoy to the peace process, Elisabeth Slåttum, and her team. Norway has been the facilitator of the peace process since 2001.

“The Philippine Government and the NDF are determined to continue the peace process. There have been several meetings between the parties here in Manila during the past weeks, and we hope it will be possible to take the process even further when the parties meet again for another formal round of talks”, Erik Førner, the Norwegian Ambassador to the Philippines, said.

Discussions between the government and the communist rebels have been on-off for 30 years but were restarted by President Rodrigo Duterte after he took office last June.

The insurgency began in 1968 in the poverty-stricken country and has claimed an estimated 30,000 lives according to the military.

The government says it wants a permanent ceasefire, although a week of negotiations on the outskirts of Rome in January ended without such a deal.

The NDF comprises several groups, the most prominent of which is the Communist Party of the Philippines, whose guerrilla unit is the 4,000-strong New People's Army (NPA). —Rie Takumi/KBK, GMA News