Palestinian prime minister Ahmed Qorei issued orders Thursday forbidding anyone but members of the security services from carrying weapons, negotiations minister Saeb Erakat told AFP. "Abu Alaa (Qorei) issued an order at the national security council meeting to all the security branches that they must not allow anyone to carry weapons without permission," Erakat said.
The order came in the form of a special decree signed by Qorei who is president of the national security council, Erakat added without giving details on what action would be taken against anyone violating the order.
New Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas and Qorei have both pledged to put an end to the "armed chaos" on the streets of the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
Residents in the West Bank are in theory forbidden from carrying weapons in the West Bank where Israeli troops are under orders to open fire at any armed Palestinians.
However West Bank cities such as Nablus and large parts of the Gaza Strip have been plagued by the rule of the gunmen in recent months and are often no-go areas for most citizens after dark.
Qorei submitted his resignation at one stage in the middle of last year after a spate of kidnappings by gunmen in the Gaza Strip which highlighted a breakdown of law and order in the territories.
Abbas has already moved to restore a degree of order in the Gaza Strip where thousands of members of the Palestinian security forces are under orders to prevent militant groups firing rockets towards Jewish settlements or over the border into Israel.
ISRAEL AGREES'IN PRINCIPLE' TO W BANK PULLBACK: DAHLAN Israel has agreed "in principle" to withdraw forces from West Bank cities and give Palestinians policing rights in these areas, a powerful Palestinian security figure told Reuters on Thursday.
Mohammed Dahlan, a confidant of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, said "Israel has agreed in principle to renew the understandings that were reached when Abbas was prime minister."
Dahlan said the understandings had been reached at a meeting with Israeli Defence Minister Shaul Mofaz in July 2003, after the launching of the US-backed road map peace plan that seeks the establishment of a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza.
Under an interim peace deal in 1993, major Palestinian cities were put under Palestinian control, but Israeli forces re-entered them after the start of an uprising in 2000.
Dahlan said there was no final deal made on the Israeli pullback from Palestinian cities in the territory captured in the 1967 Middle East war, but that the details would likely be decided in a meeting next week.
The development came as Israeli and Palestinian officials broke a lengthy hiatus on diplomatic talks and began to prepare for a first summit expected soon between Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.
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