By Pierre-Henry DESHAYES
The Philippine government and Communist guerrillas on Friday signed an indefinite ceasefire deal to facilitate peace talks aimed at ending one of Asia's longest-running insurgencies.
"This is a historic and unprecedented event ... (but) there is still a lot of work to be done ahead," President Rodrigo Duterte's peace adviser Jesus Dureza said at a signing ceremony in Norway, which is mediating the talks.
Both sides agreed to implement unilateral, indefinite ceasefires -- something that has never been achieved before in the peace process.
Norwegian Foreign Minister Borge Brende described the agreement as a "major breakthrough".
"We are on the highway to peace and we are talking of a timeline of maximum 12 months," Silvestre Bello, the Philippine government delegation's head of negotiations, told AFP.
The two parties have been meeting in Oslo since Monday, wrapping up their talks with the signing ceremony on Friday.
As a prelude to the negotiations, both sides had agreed to a ceasefire, but the truce commitment by the Communist side was due to end on Saturday.
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