Manila  - Communist rebels said Saturday they will not resume peace negotiations with the Philippine government unless their jailed comrades are freed from detention.

Jose Maria Sison, self-exiled leader of the Communist Party of the Philippines, accused the government of failing to fulfill a pledge to free guerrilla "consultants" under detention in Philippine jails.

"The fundamental problem on the government side is the lack of political will on the part of (President) Gloria Macapagal Arroyo to engage in serious peace negotiations," he said in a statement from the Netherlands where he went into exile in 1986.

"Because of the deliberate and systematic failure of the government to remove the impediments on concerned (communist) consultants, the resumption of formal talks cannot be held in August and probably can never be held in the remaining months of the Arroyo regime," Sison said.

The Norway-brokered peace talks have been stalled since 2005 after Manila refused to ask the United States and the European Union to remove the party and its key leaders, including Sison, from their foreign terrorist watch lists.

Communist rebels have been fighting the government since the late 1960s, making the movement one of the longest-running leftist insurgencies in Asia. (dpa)