MANILA, Jul 25, 2007 (Xinhua via COMTEX) -- The Philippine government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), a southern separatist group, Wednesday said they were still willing to have peace talks despite the tension over the killing and beheading of government soldiers by the rebels.

"Let us separate the peace talks from the beheading," Acting Defense Secretary and National Security Advisor Norberto Gonzales told a press conference in Manila.

The official said the so-called "all-out war" against the MILF is not a fact, although there is an expected assault by government troops on the rebel forces in the southern province of Basilan, where the fighters allegedly responsible for the beheading were hiding.

The assault aims to arrest the beheaders only, he said, adding that the MILF were also against the heheading.

"It has nothing to do with the MILF issue, it has nothing to do with the peace process, there will be no war in Mindanao," he said.

In the meantime, MILF Chairman Al Haj Ibrahim Murad on Wednesday reiterated the rebel group's commitment to peace talks, according to a report by GMA TV network.

MILF chief negotiator Mohaqher Iqbal said Murad still prefers to observe the ceasefire with the government rather than destroy gains in trying to forge a peace accord, the report said.

The report added that the MILF chief wrote to the governments of the United States, Japan, Malaysia, Brunei, Sweden, and Libya, who are the "third parties" that may help investigate the beheading incident.

The Philippine military said earlier it has planned "punitive actions" against the MILF, who turned down the ultimatum to hand over the fighters responsible for killing 14 Marine soldiers and beheading 10 of them on July 10 in a clash in Tipo-tipo, Basilan province.

A cease-fire accord was signed by the MILF with President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo in 2003. Another round of peace negotiations to discuss ending the MILF insurgency began in 2005. But the talks came into impasse over issues of "ancestral domain" of the proposed Muslim self-rule region.