East Timor's Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao indicated he would take strong action against a renegade army leader after he failed to show up on Sunday for reconciliation talks.
Alfredo Reinado, a former military police chief, has led a revolt against the government and has been charged with murder during last year's wave of factional violence, which left 37 people died and drove more than 100,000 from their homes.
The new government led by Gusmao had ordered security forces to stop hunting Reinado and instead proposed dialogue to discuss his grievances and those of 600 soldiers who were sacked by the previous government.
Reinado has said he was fighting for justice for the sacked soldiers, adding he was ready to hold talks with the government. But he failed to show up on Sunday after agreeing to meet Gusmao and President Jose Ramos-Horta for talks mediated by a Switzerland humanitarian group.
Gusmao said Reinado's lawyer had told him that Reinado wanted the government to free one of his followers who was in prison as a condition for talks. "I told him this is not my responsibility. This is the responsibility of the judiciary and I can't intervene," Gusmao told reporters.
"I'm telling Alfredo: Don't play with me. Xanana today is different from Xanana of the past," he said, referring to his apparent soft treatment of Reinado in the past.
The dismissal of the soldiers triggered a series of protests last year that degenerated into street fighting and arson attacks. In August last year Renado escaped a Dili jail where he was being held on murder charges. He later raided a police post and made off with dozens of arms.