Barry Neild, Jakarta – Hopes that talks between Indonesian leaders and separatists from tsunami-hit Aceh would end a long-running war were evaporating Thursday as rebels reacted with anger at Jakarta's refusal to compromise.

Indonesia's senior security minister, Widodo Adisucipto, earlier this week said Jakarta would not bow to rebel demands for political representation, even though these were crucial to peace talks currently underway in Finland.

Adisucipto's comments were followed by a rejection by the Indonesian military of rebel calls for a post-tsunami ceasefire in Aceh, where more than 14,000 people have been killed in three decades of struggle.

In a statement issued Thursday, Muzakkir Manaf, the military commander of the Free Aceh Movement – also known as GAM – launched a scathing attack on the government of Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, accusing it of bad faith.

"It becomes terribly clear that Jakarta has no intention of taking the slightest step forward," the statement said. "By rejecting reasonable political measures to help solve the conflict, the Indonesian government has shown – despite the tsunami and Yudhoyono's political posturing – that it has changed not one bit."

Indonesia heightened military operations to crush the rebels in May 2003 following a breakdown in peace talks. After last year's tsunami killed 128,000 people in Aceh, both sides agreed to return to the negotiating table.

Four rounds of peace talks in Helsinki, mediated by the Crisis Management Initiative of Finnish former president Martti Ahtisaari, have appeared to make progress, buoying optimism that a fifth dialogue in July will yield results.

The rebels have agreed to drop demands for independence or even a plebiscite on sovereignty in favour of a government offer of limited autonomy, provided they were given a political voice in future elections.

On Tuesday, Adisucipto rejected the condition point-blank. "There are rules and regulations that will not allow for those demands to be accommodated," he said after an eight-hour cabinet meeting with Yudhoyono.

A day later, Indonesia's armed forces chief General Endriartono Sutarto also scoffed at rebel demands for a ceasefire as he unveiled the latest statistics of guerrilla fatalities to back military claims of crushing the insurgents.

"If GAM indeed has an intention not to continue its activity to separate Aceh, they should surrender their weapons," he said. "In the past they have always used ceasefires to consolidate themselves."

Pouring further cold water on the peace talks, Sutarto said the Finland dialogue was only "one of many means" that could be used by the government to "permanently solve" the Aceh problems.

In his statement, Manaf said the rebels were now resigned to Jakarta's intransigence and the likelihood that the struggle for control of the resource rich province that began in 1976 would continue unabated.

"The announcement by Indonesia's chief security minister Widodo that Jakarta will not allow Aceh to have its own local political parties and hold new local elections confirms an old saying: The more things change, the more they stay the same," he said.

"That painful wisdom continues to fit a half-century of Jakarta's deceitful mistreatment of Aceh."