Malaysia will continue to support Manila in its efforts to resolve a dispute with Muslim rebels in the southern Philippines.

Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi said he had discussed the rebellion by the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) in a bilateral meeting with Philippine President Gloria Arroyo Monday on the sidelines of a regional summit in China.

"She's very committed to find a solution to the problems in the southern Philippines and she has asked that we continue to help, that we continue to be engaged in this special mission that we call (the) international monitoring team," Abdullah told reporters.

"We continue to exchange our views on various strategies that has been adopted, and I see a commitment on our part to find a solution to this problem," he said.

"We will continue to help whenever we are called upon to do so."

Majority-Muslim Malaysia leads an international team of monitors observing a ceasefire accord between the MILF and Manila signed in 2003.

Talks stuck

Malaysia has also been hosting and mediating in peace talks between Manila and the 12,000-strong MILF, which has been fighting for almost three decades to set up an Islamic state in the southern Philippines.

The negotiations are currently deadlocked over economic control demanded by the MILF over so-called "ancestral domains", villages and hamlets in Mindanao it claims on historical grounds.

Citing the sensitive nature of the talks, Abdullah declined to reveal further details of the discussion with Arroyo, but said Malaysia wanted to see a resumption of talks.

"We want to see that negotiations... start again. It's important that we continue to talk, that we continue to negotiate," he said.