Colombia rebels press France's Sarkozy on hostages

BOGOTA, May 24 (Reuters) Colombian guerrillas today urged new French President Nicolas Sarkozy to help broker a deal for the release of French-Colombian politician Ingrid Betancourt and dozens more hostages the rebels have held for years.

The statement from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, came after a police officer who recently escaped after nearly nine years in captivity said he had been held in the same rebel camp as Betancourt and three kidnapped US contract workers -- the first news about them since 2003.

Attempts to broker a hostage agreement between President Alvaro Uribe and the leftist rebels are stalled over a FARC demand that government troops withdraw from a rural area the size of New York City.

Sarkozy's ''good offices will be definitive in this matter to secure the return home of Ms. Ingrid and the other hostages in an exchange,'' FARC spokesman Raul Reyes told Anncol news service, which often carries rebel statements.

Sarkozy has told Betancourt's relatives in France that he will work to secure her release, but the French government is concerned that Uribe has ordered the military to intensify efforts to rescue the hostages from secret jungle camps.

France, Spain and Switzerland are already involved in efforts to release of hostages from the FARC, the country's largest rebel group which has often snatched politicians, police and soldiers for ransom and political leverage.

Betancourt was kidnapped in 2002 while campaigning for the Colombian presidency and the three Americans were captured when their plane crashed while on a counter-narcotics mission.

Uribe has led a U.S.-financed campaign to drive the rebels back and make Colombia safer by putting more military in urban areas and along highways once controlled by guerrillas.

Bogota and Washington brand the FARC as terrorists who are deeply engaged in Colombia's huge cocaine smuggling trade.

The FARC says if the government pulled troops from two towns in southern Colombia - Florida and Pradera - negotiations could proceed on the release of around 60 key hostages in exchange for jailed rebel fighters.

''The FARC reiterate to President Nicolas Sarkozy and the French people our commitment to an exchange of prisoners, for which it is absolutely necessary to guarantee Florida and Pradera are free of state forces,'' Reyes said.

But the government says that area is a strategic corridor for arms and drug trafficking and Uribe fears the FARC will use any demilitarized zone to rearm and regroup as it did in a similar area set up by his predecessor.

Reuters SLD GC2139