Asari wants the Ijaws to benefit more from Nigeria's oil wealth
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A militia leader from Nigeria's main oil region says he has agreed a truce with the country's president, although officials did not confirm the report.
Mujahid Dokubo Asari had threatened foreign workers and the threat was seen as one reason why world oil prices hit record highs of $50 a barrel this week.
He says he is fighting for Ijaw people's rights in the Niger Delta but officials dismiss him as an oil thief.
Mr Asari said more talks were scheduled for Thursday.
'No shooting'
Mr Asari said he and five other colleagues had met President Olusegun Obasanjo and other government officials at the state house and been reassured of the government's peaceful intentions.
"The president has given a firm assurance that no attacks will be carried out against our positions and we too have undertaken not to attack the military," Mr Asari told the BBC's Focus on Africa programme.
He refused to disarm until his key demands of self-determination and control of resources were discussed.
"We will call for the surrender of weapons when the fundamental issues are put up for discussion."
Speaking to the AFP news agency, he specified that he and the president had "reached a temporary arrangement, not a ceasefire".
However, there was no government confirmation that Mr Obasanjo had attended talks.
Nigeria's Information Minister Chief Chukwuemeka Chikelu said only that the rebel delegation had met "security officers and other officers of the state".
Production hit
Earlier, Mr Obasanjo's spokeswoman had said the president was not planning to meet Mr Asari.
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In pictures: Fighting for oil
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But Mr Asari said he had flown to Abuja on a presidential jet and that the meeting was at the request of a presidential envoy who had travelled to the creeks in the Niger Delta to see him.
On Tuesday, Nigeria's military warned Mr Asari's Niger Delta People's Volunteer Force that it would take off the "kid gloves" unless the militia stopped threatening oil workers.
The militia had said foreign oil companies must cease production or face "all-out war" in the Niger Delta from Friday.
The Anglo-Dutch firm Shell, the biggest oil company in Nigeria, boosted security following the threats.
Nigeria is the world's seventh largest exporter of oil, but 70% of its population live in poverty.
A statement from Shell described the region as still tense and said that the movement of employees and supplies had been curtailed.
Oil production has also been affected.
The Santa Barbara flow station, which produces 28,000 barrels per day, has been shut down because the company cannot reach the area to fix a technical problem.
'Joker'
Mr Asari said that expatriates - who in this region are predominantly oil workers - could only return when fundamental issues of resource control and self-determination had been resolved.
Clashes between rebels and security forces have escalated
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He took to the creeks of River State earlier this year, and hundreds of people have died in subsequent clashes with the police, navy and rival gangs.
Fighting has intensified in the last month since the military launched a major operation against the group.
Last week, Shell pulled out more than 200 of its non-essential staff from two gas and oil fields because of heightened tensions.
A spokesman for the River State government called Mr Asari a "joker".
"He does not have the capacity to destroy oil installations," Emmanuel Okah told AFP.
"The government will not allow it. The security forces are fully mobilised and combat-ready to dislodge this criminal group,"
The BBC's Anna Borzello in Nigeria says the Niger Delta holds the bulk of Nigeria's oil reserves but the area is under-developed and riven by conflict, often caused by armed gangs involved in the lucrative trade of smuggling crude oil.
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