Philippine President Benigno Aquino announced Sunday a deal had been reached with Muslim separatist rebels to end a decades-long insurgency that has left more than 150,000 people dead.

"This framework agreement paves the way for a final and enduring peace in Mindanao," Aquino said, referring to the southern third of the Philippines that the Moro Islamic Liberation Front regards as its ancestral homeland. "It brings all former secessionist groups into the fold. No longer does the Moro Islamic Liberation Front aspire for a separate state."

Aquino said that the agreement paves the way for the creation of a new semi-autonomous Muslim region in parts of Mindanao, which is one of the country's most resource-rich and fertile areas.
However the national government would retain control over defence and security, as well as foreign and monetary policy.

Aquino said the agreement, achieved after many rounds of peace talks in Malaysia, would have to be ratified by the people of the Philippines through a plebiscite.

Aquino gave no timeframe for when the final peace with the 12,000-strong MILF would be achieved, although his aides had previously said they were aiming for before the president ends his term in mid-2016.

There are roughly four million Muslims in Mindanao, which they see as their ancestral homeland dating back to Islamic sultanates established before Spanish Christians arrived in the 1500s.
The MILF and other Muslim rebel groups have been fighting for independence or autonomy in Mindanao since the early 1970s.

The rebellion has claimed more than 150,000 lives, most in the 1970s when all-out war raged, and left large parts of Mindanao in deep poverty. The MILF is the biggest and most important rebel group left, after the Moro National Liberation Front signed a peace pact with the government in 1996.