MANILA - A leader of the biggest group of Muslim separatists in the Philippines rejected today Malaysia's appeal to drop demands for a separate Islamic state and instead settle for limited self-rule.

"When the Bangsamoro (Moro nation) revolution was launched in 1968, the demand was independence," Ghazali Jaafar, vice chairman of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), told AFP by telephone.

While a second Muslim rebel faction, the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF), signed a peace treaty with Manila in 1996 in exchange for autonomy for the minority Muslims, who call themselves Moros, Jaafar said, "the MILF and the rest of the Bangsamoro did not agree to it.