PRESIDENT Yoweri Museveni has rejected allegations by Aswa county MP Reagan Okumu that the Government is not sincere in pursuing the ceasefire proposals suggested by Joseph Kony's Lord's Resistance Army.

On Monday, Okumu threatened before a news conference in Kampala to pull out of President Museveni's negotiating team due to what he called lack of honesty among some elements in the political and military circles.

The negotiators are led by first deputy premier and internal affairs minister Eriya Kategaya.

He named defence minister Amama Mbabazi as one of the hardliners frustrating Museveni's peace overtures.

Okumu said he was being phoned by the rebels to find out about their proposed ceasefire.

"My only disappointment is that the Government is not honouring this thing (peace talks).

"Since Saturday, they are saying, 'wait we'll get back to you.' The rebels keep calling and now I have nothing to tell them," Okumu told journalists at the Parliament.

But Museveni, who has pitched camp in Gulu to oversee the UPDF's operations against Kony rebels, said he had made clear the conditions for the ceasefire.

He said he was surprised that the rebels had called Okumu and not his secretary since he had given the LRA his phone number.

The full text reads as follows: "Hon. Reagan Okumu has got some mistakes if what is quoted in the papers is true.

"On Saturday evening, Hon Okumu said the rebels had decided to observe a unilateral ceasefire from midnight of that day.

"I immediately gave a hand-written note to my secretary to read to Reagan over the phone. The note read:

"We shall not respect that cease-fire unless Kony groups go to one uninhabited place or ask for safe passage to go to such a place. That an uninhabited place must be acceptable to us. I propose Adodi hills as one such place. We shall not accept Kilak or any places south of it; nor shall we accept Latanya hills.

"Later on, Maj. Gen. Kazini read the same message over the FM radio in Gulu.

"All my earlier messages contained the same message. 'We shall not observe a ceasefire until the rebels agree to assemble in certain designated areas near the border or in southern Sudan.'

"That was the same message in my broadcast over Radio Gulu FM. Where is the dishonesty, Hon. Okumu? "It is true that I gave, on request of Hon Okumu, a telephone number of one of my secretaries to him to pass to the rebels if that would help in assuring them.

"Why, then, have they not rang that secretary in case they wanted any clarification? Why should they only 'bother' Reagan when they could 'bother' my secretary? "The rebels should do what I told them to do. It is only then that we shall stop pursuing them.

"We do not want their tricks of 1994 when they were in the so-called 'peace talks' with Mrs. Bigombe but were also infiltrating arms from Sudan (from Parajok).

"All this is information of the public."