Philippine Foreign Minister Quits Over U.S. Troops

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Thursday, June 27, 2002

Philippine Foreign Minister Quits Over U.S. Troops

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Philippine Vice President Teofisto Guingona has resigned from the post of foreign affairs secretary over the deployment of U.S. troops in the country on counter-terrorism exercises, officials said on Thursday.

President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo has accepted the resignation, a statement from the presidential palace said.

Guingona, who will remain vice president, has been unhappy since U.S. troops were sent to the insurgency-hit southern Philippines in February this year to train the local military to put down Muslim guerrillas linked to the al Qaeda network.

``He is unhappy with the U.S. role in the southern Philippines,'' a senior government officer told Reuters.

Newspapers have said Guingona felt it contravened a constitutional bar on allowing foreign troops into the country.

Arroyo said in her letter accepting the resignation that she would like Guingona to continue as an adviser to the Department of Foreign Affairs. Chief government spokesman Silvestre Afable said no decision had been made on who would replace Guingona at the department.

Guingona was named vice-president and also foreign affairs secretary in January last year after Arroyo, then the vice-president, replaced President Joseph Estrada following an army-backed people's revolution.

Philippine VP Does Not Quit Cabinet

Philippine Vice President Teofisto Guingona denied a presidential palace announcement that he has quit President Gloria Arroyo's cabinet, where he holds the foreign department portfolio.

"I did not resign, period," he was quoted by media reports as saying Thursday.

Earlier, officials at the presidential palace were quoted as saying that Arroyo had accepted his resignation.

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