BAGHDAD, 10 October 2004 — Iraq’s interim government and the militia of Shiite cleric Moqtada Sadr sealed a peace deal yesterday as delegates from rebel-held Fallujah said the city wanted to vote in scheduled elections in January.

Ali Smeisem, a senior aide to Sadr, said the Mehdi Army militia would begin turning in medium and heavy weapons at three Baghdad police stations tomorrow in an operation that is expected to last five days.

As a confidence-building measure, the government will suspend raids on Sadr’s followers in the capital’s northeastern Sadr City district, Smeisem said.

The minister in charge of national security, Kassem Daoud, said the government was pleased with the agreement. He told Al-Arabiya television that once officials verify the weapons handover is complete, they will begin paying compensation to people who lost property during the fighting and financing reconstruction projects. Iraqi police and soldiers will be in charge of law and order in the Shiite district, he added.

Fallujah delegates said the city wanted to take part in the elections and could accept the return of Iraqi security forces. “A delegation from Fallujah is now discussing with the Defense Ministry the entry of Iraqi National Guards into the city,” chief Fallujah negotiator Khaled Al-Jumaili said.

He was speaking after talks at a US military base near Fallujah, attended by US Ambassador to Iraq John Negroponte and government officials.

Meanwhile, the US military denied an Al-Arabiya TV report that Iraq’s former Deputy Prime Minister Tareq Aziz had died in US custody. “I can absolutely confirm that he is still alive,” Lt. Col. Barry Johnson, spokesman for detainee operations in Iraq, said.

Johnson said rumors first surfaced Friday that Aziz had died in jail. He said those rumors were investigated and found to be baseless.

“The reports are untrue. There is no change to his status,” he said. “Tareq Aziz is alive and well.”

A son of Aziz, Ziad, confirmed to a French monk and friend of the family, Jean Marie Benjamin, in Amman that his father was still alive.

— Additional input from agencies