On Tuesday the Philippine government and communist rebels said they have agreed to resume peace talks to end one of the world’s longest-running Maoist insurgencies.

 The ongoing armed struggle, launched in 1969, grew out of the global communist movement, finding fertile soil in the Philippines’ stark rich-poor divide.

At its peak in the 1980s, the group boasted about 26,000 fighters, a number the military says has now dwindled to less than 2,000.

Successive Philippine administrations have held peace talks with the communists through their Netherlands-based political arm, the National Democratic Front (NDF).

The announcement comes almost a year after Jose Maria Sison, who launched the insurgency, died in self-imposed exile in the Netherlands.