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The government promptly refused the demand made by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia in a statement telling President Alvaro Uribe to order police and soldiers out of two mountain towns in the western province of Valle del Cauca in order to hold negotiations there.
"We consider it essential that government forces leave the towns of Pradera and Florida," the rebels, known by their Spanish initials FARC, said in the statement.
Without such a guarantee, the group, which is black-listed as a terrorist organization by the United States and the European Union, said there would be no point starting negotiations.
Uribe, a Washington ally elected in 2002 on promises of crushing Colombia's insurgency, was a harsh critic of the previous administration's failed peace talks, which took place in a zone abandoned by state security forces.
"This government is not going to remove its security forces in order to meet with the FARC or anybody else," a government spokesman told Reuters.
The spokesman also said Uribe would not act on the FARC's request that two of its top leaders, extradited to the United States on drug smuggling charges, be repatriated.
Late last month, the Colombian government offered to meet the rebels at a time and place of their own choosing to negotiate an exchange of hostages for guerrillas held in state prisons.
FARC hostages include Ingrid Betancourt, a dual French-Colombian national captured while campaigning for Colombia's presidency in 2002 as well as three Americans -- U.S. Defense Department contractors seized the same year.
The others include Colombian police officers, soldiers and politicians.
In one of the deadliest attacks this year, FARC rebels killed 14 policemen on Monday in an ambush in the mountains of the Caribbean province of Cesar, where the rebels and right-wing groups are fighting for control of coca-growing land used in the production of cocaine.
Diario Hoy (Argentina)
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