Separatists holding two Italians and a Lebanese national hostage in the volatile Niger Delta said they would not consider releasing them until after elections due in May.
“We do not forsee the release of the Italians before this government leaves office (in May),” a spokesman for the militants said in an e-mail message to AFP.
“There are no more negotiations ongoing towards the release of the hostages,” the spokesman for the Movement for the Emancipation of Niger Delta (MEND) said.
“We are under no presure from any quarters. We owe allegiance to no one but the people of the Niger Delta,” he said.
But the Nigerian government’s chief negotiator, Boladei Igali, denied any breakdown in talks with MEND over the release of the three hostages.
“We are in discussion. We are in contact, we are talking. We have gone very far in discussion and we have some hope in sight,” he said in a telephone interview with AFP.
He declined to give further details.
The three oil workers were kidnapped in Nigeria’s volatile Niger Delta last December 7.
Italians Cosma Russo and Francesco Arena and Lebanese Imad Saliba, all workers for Italian oil firm Agip, were seized by MEND from one of the company’s facilities at Brass in southern Bayelsa State.
Another Italian kidnapped with them, Roberto Dieghi, was freed on January 18 because of health problems.
Their abduction is one in a spate of kidnappings designed to highlight alleged imbalances in the distribution of oil wealth in the oil-rich region.
The MEND gave assurances at the end of last month that it would not execute the three hostages even if talks over their release broke down.
Last year separatists in the oil-rich Niger Delta region kidnapped more than 60 foreigners, mostly in the oil sector, as well as killing 37 Nigerian soldiers and dozens of local oil workers.
Nigeria is Africa’s largest oil producer and derives more than 95 percent of its foreign exchange earnings from the fossil fuel.
It lost more than half a million barrels a day last year due to disruptions in production caused by unrest in the Delta region.