MANILA - Peace talks between the Philippine government and communist rebels are set to resume in Norway four years after the long-running talks were suspended.

The National Democratic Front (NDF), in a statement posted on its Web site on Wednesday, said it is already preparing for the resumption of peace talks.

“On behalf of the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP), I wish to announce that preparations are being made by the Negotiating Panels of the NDFP and the Government of the Republic of the Philippines (GRP) for the resumption of formal talks in the GRP-NDFP peace negotiations in Oslo, Norway sometime in August 2009,” said Luis Jalandoni, NDF negotiating panel chief.

Earlier, President Arroyo’s top aide announced that the arrest warrants against rebel leaders who take part in the talks would be suspended, giving them immunity starting July 17 until the conclusion of talks aimed at ending the 40-year Maoist rebellion.

"We have enough good reason to agree to the resumption of the talks facilitated by the Norwegian government," Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita told reporters.

Talks were suspended in 2004 after Arroyo refused communist demands that she ask the West -- including the United States and the European Union -- to cancel the rebels' designation as terrorists.

Many of the communists' top leaders live in exile in the Netherlands.

Their designation as "terrorists" on international lists led to the freezing of their assets and bank accounts, including those held by Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) founding chair Jose Maria Sison, who is chief political consultant of the NDF’s negotiating panel. Sison is on self-exile in the Dutch city of Utrecht.

“Continuous contact”

Ermita said the government peace panel was in "continuous contact" with Jalandoni and with Sison.

Jalandoni confirmed the assistance being provided by the Norwegian government. He said it has helped the representatives of the negotiating panels to meet in The Hague in The Netherlands last June 15, 2009 “and agree on the necessary preparations for the resumption of formal talks.”

The NDF official said the preparatory meeting of the two panels would be held in Oslo in August.

Jalandoni also said that the negotiating panels of the Philippine government and NDF have agreed to exchange drafts within July of a “Joint Statement that shall be unified in a common draft” in the preparatory meeting..

“The Joint Statement shall embody the agenda and points of agreement of the panels in the formal talks,” said Jalandoni.

Arroyo has previously vowed to end long-running communist and Muslim separatist insurgencies by the time her six-year term ends in 2010.

However a wave of deadly bombings that left about a dozen dead and over 100 injured has clouded any prospect of resuming talks with Muslim insurgents in the south anytime soon.

The CPP and its 5,000-strong military wing, the New People's Army (NPA), has been waging a Maoist rebellion since 1969, in one of Asia's longest running communist insurgencies. With a report from Agence France-Presse