June 8, 2003	Sunday	Rabi-us-Sani 7, 1424

TEL AVIV, June 7: Palestinian security chief Mohammed Dahlan is to offer armed Palestinian groups six thousand dollars apiece for guns they possess in a bid to rid the Palestinian territories of illegal arms, Israel public radio said on Saturday.

The report said Dahlan received money from the US and British governments and from the European Union to fund the programme.

But two senior West Bank officials belonging to Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat’s Fatah movement said they knew nothing of the proposal.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, the two officials said they knew Dahlan was conducting talks with various Palestinian groups, but had not heard anything more than that.

But citing sources in the Gaza Strip, Israeli radio said Dahlan was likely to reach an agreement about illegal weapons with Fatah splinter group the Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades in the next few days.

The radio quoted a senior figure in the Brigades as saying Dahlan was paying twice the price for such a weapon on the black market.

Dahlan was also proposing to give six thousand dollars to every brigade member who would agree to leave the organisation and join the Palestinian security forces, the radio said.

At the peace summit in Aqaba, Jordan on Wednesday, Palestinian prime minister Mahmud Abbas committed himself to ridding the Palestinian territories of illegal weapons as a first step towards implementing the Mideast peace roadmap. —AFP