BUJUMBURA, BURUNDI - Burundian President Domitien Ndayizeye said Saturday he would persist in seeking an agreement with the country's main rebel leader on the eve of a summit aimed at ending a decade of civil war.

"Despite our differences, we have agreed to meet on Sunday ahead of the summit to try to bring our positions closer together," Ndayizeye told reporters of his proposed talks with Pierre Nkurunziza, head of the Hutu Forces for the Defence of Democracy (FDD) rebel movement.

Ndayizeye and Nkurunziza were to have met in Kampala on Thursday but their meeting was postponed to allow both sides to hold consultations on the composition of a future power-sharing government.

The FDD has demanded key posts in the new Burundian government, including a new vice presidency, the speaker of parliament and the head of the army.

Ndayizeye said the meeting would now take place in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, where nearly a dozen African leaders are to gather Monday to try to revive the moribund ceasefire signed in December between the interim Burundian government and all but one rebel group.

Some 300,000 Burundians have died and hundreds of thousands have been displaced or exiled since the country's first democratically elected president was assassinated in 1993, touching off a decade of ethnic violence between majority Hutu and minority Tutsi factions.

Ndayizeye, a Hutu, heads a transitional government inaugurated in November that is intended to be the first step towards holding national elections in three years.

The government includes the main Hutu party, the Burundi Democratic Front (FRODEBU) headed by Jean Miniani and the main Tutsi party, the Unity for National Progress (UPRONA) headed by Alphonse Kadege.

"We don't want to enter a government directed by FRODEBU and UPRONA, we want to share in decision-making with them," the FDD's secretary general, Hussein Radjabu, told AFP.

Sunday's meeting is expected to reinforce the internationally-backed peace and reconciliation agreement for Burundi, which was signed in Arusha, Tanzania in August 2000.

That called for the Tutsi-dominated army to be split 50-50 between Tutsis and Hutus, and for posts in the government and seats in the parliament to be split 60-40 in favor of the Hutus.

But Ndayizeye said the FDD appeared to want to take the entire Hutu allocation in the power-sharing agreement.

"It is not fair to say that the FDD are the only Hutus. There are other rebel movements and the Hutus already in the army," the president added.

The second largest Hutu group, the National Liberation Forces (FNL), has refused to sign a ceasefire agreement with the interim government.