Manila  - Malaysia said Thursday that it would continue to broker peace talks between the Philippines and Muslim separatist rebels despite a plan to pull out ceasefire monitors by the end of August.

General Tan Sri Abdul Aziz, chief of the Malaysian Armed Forces, said Kuala Lumpur was not abandoning the peace process in the troubled southern Philippine region of Mindanao.

Aziz, who was in the Philippines for a five-day visit, said his government was looking into sending a new contingent of monitors under a "new format" that would "hasten the peace process."

"I do not know what would be the new format, but certainly we are committed to the peace process in Mindanao," Aziz said at a press conference after meeting with Philippine military officials.

Malaysia has led the international monitoring team in Mindanao since 2004 to ensure the compliance of the Philippine military and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) with a 2001 ceasefire.

Other members of the team are from Brunei, Libya, Canada and Japan.

The deployment of the team has greatly decreased violence between the Philippine military and the MILF, which is the largest Muslim rebel group fighting for a separate Islamic state in Mindanao.

Aziz said the Malaysian peacekeeping forces would withdraw from Mindanao after the contract for their stay expires on August 31.

He expressed confidence that violence would not escalate after the pullout, noting that the international monitors have already "created a peaceful atmosphere."

"They [the combatants] have been enjoying the peaceful situation in the last two years, and I'm sure they wouldn't like to go back to the old days when they were fighting," he said.

"We are very confident that the situation will continue to improve," he added.

Rodolfo Garcia, chief government peace negotiator with the MILF, welcomed Malaysia's assurance that it would continue to facilitate the negotiations.

"That's a very important task that the Malaysians would continue to do," he said. "They assured us that they are going to be with us until the end of the process."

Garcia added that the remaining peacekeepers would continue to "secure their ground and continue on doing their work as ceasefire monitors, preventing the eruption of conflict."

Peace talks between Manila and the MILF have been suspended since September 2006 over disagreements on how to set up a proposed Islamic homeland in Mindanao, home to the country's Muslim minority. (dpa)