President Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan and his Philippines counterpart Gloria Arroyo agreed yesterday to boost intelligence cooperation to combat al-Qaeda-linked militants.
Musharraf, on a swing through Asia, arrived here late on Monday from India and was given a military welcome yesterday at the Malacanang presidential palace ahead of his talks with Arroyo.
Musharraf, who did not speak to the press, was to address a joint session of the Philippine Congress later in the day.
Arroyo said she compared notes with Musharraf on their respective governments' campaigns against terrorism.
"He believes as much as I do that when we fight terrorism, there is the military aspect and then there's the socio-cultural aspect," Arroyo told a news conference after the talks.
"So on the military aspect, we agreed to enhance our intelligence exchange," Arroyo said. "It's very very important in the world of international terrorism."
Arroyo said her national security adviser Norberto Gonzales is to work closely with Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), which has been tracking down key operatives of the Taliban after the hardline Islamic militia were toppled from power by US-led forces in 2001.
Pakistan abandoned the Taliban in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks in the US. The Taliban had sheltered Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network which carried out the attacks.
Gonzales is tentatively scheduled to meet with ISI officials in June.
Arroyo said both the Philippines and Pakistan will also work together in addressing the root causes of terrorism through enhanching "inter-faith leadership dialogue" to moderate teachings in Muslim schools or madrassas.
The Philippines has been struggling with a decades-old Muslim separatist insurgency in the main southern island of Mindanao.
It has opened peace talks with the 12,000-strong Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) but US military advisers are helping it fight the Abu Sayyaf, a small group of al-Qaeda-linked militants.
Key al-Qaeda suspects are believed to have once used the southern Philippines as a training base.
In 1995 Filipino and US intelligence operatives foiled a plot by militant Ramzi Yousef to blow up American airlines from Manila.
Yousef, who was arrested in Pakistan, is serving a lengthy prison sentence in the US for the 1993 bombing of New York's World Trade Center.
Musharraf and Arroyo also witnessed the signing of a memorandum of understanding that will serve as a "legal framework to facilitate cooperation and inter-operability between the security, intelligence and law enforcement agencies of the two countries.".
The agreement was signed by Philippine Interior Secretary Angelo Reyes and Pakistan Foreign Secretary Riaz Khan.
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