COTABATO CITY?A Malaysia-led team that helps enforce a truce between Moro guerrillas and government troops said it was likely to pull out of Mindanao if no peace agreement was signed by August.

At a dinner hosted by the city government on Tuesday, Maj. Gen. Datuk Mat Yassin bin Mat Daud, head of the International Monitoring Team, said his team might stay in Mindanao only until August in the absence of a peace pact between the Philippine government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front.

The talks were stalled on Dec. 15 last year when government negotiators inserted the phrase ?constitutional processes? in a draft agreement that called for the establishment of a Bangsamoro Juridical Entity (BJE).

Government and MILF negotiators were supposed to finalize the agreement on the territorial composition of the BJE, the MILF?s proposed homeland. The government wants the juridical entity to be subjected to a plebiscite, a proposal that the MILF rejects.

?I doubt very much that the IMT will stay in Mindanao (if no agreement is signed by then),? Yassin said as he ruled out the possibility of another batch of peacekeepers coming in.

Yassin said the work of the IMT-4, which came in September, was originally for three months only but ?positive developments? prompted him to recommend that the team be allowed to stay until August.

He said the number of armed clashes between guerrillas and soldiers fell by 98 percent.

Only seven clashes were recorded last year, compared to 33 in 2006, he said.

Yassin said he was still optimistic about the talks despite the deadlock.

He called on government and rebel negotiators to be more sincere, saying the four-year stay of the IMT was enough time for them to demonstrate truthfulness in the talks.

?The deadlock in the peace talks is causing alarm to all sectors, that?s why we need reassuring words,? Mayor Muslimin Sema said.

?In our case in the Moro National Liberation Front, I am personally hoping that our agreement with the government would not become a cause for other Moro groups to doubt the peace process,? he said.

?Making an agreement is one thing, but the harder thing yet is the implementation. No matter how well-crafted an agreement can be, it does not automatically translate into reality.?

Government negotiators are dangling before the MILF an amendment to the Constitution to create a federal state in Mindanao, which the guerrillas rejected and called plain trickery.

The MILF has accused the government of using the guerrillas in pushing for Charter change.