President Gloria Arroyo has formally asked Malaysia to host a new round of peace talks between the Philippines and Muslim separatist rebels, but Kuala Lumpur has yet to set a date, a presidential spokesman said today.

The rebel Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) has said the talks would be held next week, but Arroyo spokesman Ignacio Bunye said he could not confirm that.

"A timetable is being worked out, but we don't have any specific date. We are hopeful that this proposed timetable would push through and would result to an early harvest of peace in the conflict-affected area," he told a news conference.

Manila is seeking a negotiated settlement to the decades-old civil war in the southern third of the mainly Roman Catholic Southeast Asian nation to deny foreign Islamic militants a terrorist training base on Mindanao island.

"It is very important that we coordinate with the Malaysian government because they are the hosts and we will seriously consider the date that they will be proposing," Bunye said.

Rebel leader: MILF is sincere

MILF spokesman Eid Kabalu said it was his understanding that the talks would resume in Kuala Lumpur next week. Malaysia had earlier hosted a previous, inconclusive round of peace talks.

Interviewed by telephone from the southern city of Zamboanga, Kabalu said the rebel leadership would conduct an information campaign to educate its nearly 12,000 guerrillas about the peace process with the government.

"This will show the MILF's sincerity in the peace talks. We will educate our members on how to sustain the peace process because this will further sustain the peace process on the ground," he said.

Government officials earlier said the rebel leadership was not entirely sold on the peace talks, and that radical factions were providing training venues for foreign militants of the Jemaah Islamiyah, affiliated with the al-Qaeda network behind the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States.