MANILA, Aug. 14 (Xinhua) -- The negotiation between the Philippines and the United States over the framework agreement on the American forces' increased rotational presence in the Philippines was nothing but a "masquerade", the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) said Wednesday.
The leftist rebel group said that the talks which began on Wednesday were just to formalize what has been the U.S. practice of making use of the Philippines as a military base.
"The plan to grant the U.S. greater military access to local ports and infrastructure and to extend rights to set up its own facilities has long been agreed upon by the Aquino government and the U.S. military," said the CPP, the umbrella group of the New People's Army (NPA) and the National Democratic Front (NDF).
This arrangement was clinched in the Strategic Defense Dialogue held in Washington in January 2012 right after U.S. President Barack Obama declared his government's strategy to pivot toward Asia where it plans to deploy more than half of its naval force, it said.
The CPP reiterated its position that further strengthening and expanding U.S. military presence in the Philippines violate Philippine sovereignty.
The CPP-NPA-NDF has been waging war against the Philippine government for over four decades.
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