JAKARTA, Indonesia - Indonesia insisted Tuesday that it only will resume sharing bird flu virus samples with the World Health Organization if the body stops providing them to commercial vaccine makers.

The defiant comments by Health Minister Siti Fadiliah Supari came as top WHO officials met with Indonesian counterparts and other global health chiefs in Jakarta to try to persuade the country to resume sharing its samples.

Indonesia — the nation hardest hit by bird flu, with 66 human deaths — says it cannot afford vaccines produced commercially using its strains under the current system.

"The WHO must change the mechanism which has gone on for 40 or 50 years that is unfair to developing countries," Supari told el-Shinta radio station in an interview. "These practices keep developing countries poor and sick. The system is more dangerous than bird flu itself."

Indonesia"e;s decision has received support from some other developing nations, but has alarmed international scientists wanting to check whether the virus is mutating into a more dangerous form.

On Monday, Dr. David Heymann, WHO"e;s top flu official, dismissed an Indonesian suggestion that the WHO sign a legally binding agreement stating that any samples it receives would not be used for commercial purposes. Heymann said such an agreement would hinder research into the virus.

He suggested several solutions to ensure a fairer distribution of the vaccine, among them, creating a stockpile of vaccines for use in developing countries and transferring technology so they can produce their own vaccines.

"I am not asking for laboratories or vaccines, I am demanding our rights as a nation," Supari said. "If (these talks) end in deadlock, don"e;t blame me."

To ensure it has access to a bird flu vaccine, Indonesia has reached a tentative agreement with U.S. drug manufacturer Baxter Healthcare Corp. Under the deal, Indonesia would provide samples of the virus in exchange for Baxter"e;s expertise in vaccine production. Indonesia would stockpile the vaccine for use in case there is a major human outbreak.

The United States urged Indonesia to resume sharing samples with the WHO.

"All nations have a responsibility to share data and virus samples," U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Mike Leavitt said in an e-mailed statement Monday that also offered $10 million to WHO to help make sure poor countries have access to vaccines.

For at least 50 years, the WHO has collected regular flu samples from around the world and made them available to vaccine makers. Developing countries have not protested the system before because their demand for regular flu vaccines was low.

The three-day meeting, attended by health officials from 18 countries, is to end Wednesday.

Bird flu has killed at least 169 people since it began ravaging Asian poultry stocks in 2003, according to WHO. It remains hard for people to catch, and most human cases have been linked to contact with sick birds. But experts fear it could mutate into a form that spreads easily among people, potentially sparking a pandemic that could kill millions.