The talks are to be held in the Finnish capital, Helsinki, said the Crisis Management Initiative (CMI) - headed by Finnish ex-President Martti Ahtisaari.

Earlier, Indonesian military chief Gen Endriartono Sutarto said his troops had stopped attacking rebels in the province to give dialogue a chance.

Aceh was one of the areas worst-hit by the 26 December earthquake and tsunami.

'Good thing'

CMI said in a statement that representatives from the Indonesian government and the Free Aceh Movement (Gam) would meet towards the end of the coming week.

But the organisation would give no further details "because of the sensitivity of the meeting and in order to create a conducive atmosphere".

Finnish Foreign Minister Erkki Tuomioja said the government "supports these efforts and hopes that negotiations will lead to rapid results".

A spokesman for Gam's leadership in exile in Sweden, Bakhtiar Abdullah, said the planned meeting was "a good thing", Reuters news agency reported.

"Our main focus right now is still the efforts to bring aid in to Aceh," Mr Abdullah told the agency.

Indonesian security forces launched a major campaign against Gam rebels in May 2003 after the collapse of a peace process.

But after the tsunami both sides claimed to have ceased operations.

However fighting continued, casting doubt on hopes that the disaster would lead to the end of the conflict.

Last Thursday, Indonesia's armed forces said they had killed 120 separatist rebels in two weeks - because rebels were stealing aid meant for tsunami victims.

The rebels said such claims were propaganda.