OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, 8 June 2003 — Palestinian security chief Muhammad Dahlan is to offer armed Palestinian groups $6,000 apiece for guns they possess in a bid to rid the Palestinian territories of illegal arms, Israel public radio reported yesterday. The report said Dahlan received money from the US and British governments and from the European Union to fund the program.

But two senior West Bank officials belonging to Palestinian President Yasser Arafat’s Fatah movement told AFP 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 $6,000 to every Brigade member who would agree to leave the organization and join the Palestinian security forces, the radio said.

At the peace summit in Aqaba, Jordan on Wednesday, Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas committed himself to ridding the Palestinian territories of illegal weapons as a first step toward implementing the Mideast peace road map.

Meanwhile, Egypt’s foreign minister said in remarks published yesterday that Israeli attacks against Palestinians after renewed peace efforts were undermining the Palestinian government’s efforts to end anti-Israeli violence. “The real obstacle preventing Palestinian-Palestinian dialogue from reaching a result to enable the implementation of the road map is the Israeli position which insists on maintaining the policy of invasion and killing and destruction,” Foreign Minister Ahmed Maher said.

The Hamas resistance group said on Friday it broke off talks with Abbas on ending attacks on Israelis, in a strong challenge to peace pledges he made at a US-led summit in Aqaba, Jordan last week. “The (Israeli) maneuvering is dangerous and further complicates matters and is considered an invitation to violence,” Maher told Saudi Arabia’s Al-Riyadh daily.