"It has been postponed because of technical matters," Shihab said of a planned meeting between Wahid and Hashim Salamat, head of the 15,000-strong Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), an armed group operating in the main southern Mindanao island, near Indonesia.

Asked when the meeting, aimed at helping end the jihad in the Philippines, could take place, Shihab said that "it depends."

Wahid is scheduled to attend an Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) summit in Manila on Sunday to be followed by talks between the 10-member group and key partners China, Japan and South Korea.

A spokesman for the mujahedin declined to comment on the postponement.

Filipino Foreign Minister Domingo Siazon said that his government was not consulted in the cancellation and that they were only informed of the decision.

"The decision is that in view of pressing commitments back home, he is not able to go to Mindanao," Siazon said. The Philippines "is in no position" to tell the Indonesian government otherwise, he said.

Siazon told journalists: "I think they have already decided that President Wahid would not be able to go because he has a lot of problems in Jakarta."

Ghazali Jaafar, vice-chairman of the MILF, said that the Muslims were "excited" about the meeting between Wahid and their leader Salamat. "It is a meeting of two great Muslim leaders. A meeting of peace between brother Muslims," he said.

Wahid faces his own serious separatist problems in Aceh and other regions of Indonesia and the planned meeting has been criticized in the Philippines as Indonesian intervention. But Philippine President Joseph Estrada has supported the visit, saying it will help government peace efforts.

The MILF is the last group still fighting for an independent Islamic state in the southern Philippines. Although it has opened peace talks with the government, frequent battles still rage and there have been several firefights in the past week.

The Philippines is predominantly Roman Catholic.

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