FILIPINO communist rebels have warned peace talks with the government will fail unless President Rodrigo Duterte honours his pledge to cut military ties with the US.

The first reports from Wednesday’s New People’s Army (NPA) press conference held under top secret conditions at a guerilla encampment in the Sierra Madre mountains surfaced yesterday.

Regional commander and spokesman Jaime Padilla told a small group of reporters escorted to the camp: “While the Duterte government hasn’t abrogated all these treaties, the New People’s Army will have no reason to enter into a friendship or alliance with him.