BAGHDAD, Oct 9 (AFP) - Fighters in Baghdad's Sadr City slum announced Saturday a deal to trade in their weapons for cash and to stop attacking US and Iraqi forces, raising hopes for an end to violence in the war-ravaged district.
The Iraqi government said it was taking a wait-and-see approach to the announcement by the movement of radical cleric Moqtada Sadr.
It gave Sadr's Mehdi Army militia five days, starting Monday, to make good on its pledges.
All sides claimed nothing had been formalised in writing after a discussion among a Sadr representative, a tribal leader, a US military commander, the government's national security advisor and representatives of the defence and interior ministries.
But it was the most positive development since fighting erupted at the beginning of April in Sadr City, long suffering under Saddam Hussein and now caught in the crossfire of the Americans and the Mehdi Army. More than 1,000 lives have been lost and the slum's infrastructure wrecked.
"We will stop all operations starting today against Iraqi and US forces. An agreement has been reached to release all prisoners and to stop pursuing and arresting members of the Sadr movement," Sheikh Abdul Zahra Suwaidiy, a senior Sadr official, told reporters outside Sadr City's Al-Hikma mosque.
"We in turn have agreed to end all military operations and to hand over all our heavy- and medium-sized weapons," Suwaidiy said.
He said the Sadr movement was ready to remove all armed presence in the area and allow Iraqi forces to police the entire district provided the other side sticks to its promises.
Earlier, a tribal leader from the squalid district of 2.5 million people touted the initiative.
"We have agreed today that the fighters would hand over their heavy and medium-sized weapons for cash starting Monday," Kareem al-Bakheet told AFP.
"Also the US military has undertaken not to attack Sadr City and we in turn have agreed to urge fighters through mosque loudspeakers to stop attacking American and Iraqi forces."
Bakheet, who heads a grouping of tribal leaders in Sadr City with loyalty to Sadr, also said the government has agreed to stop pursuing and arresting Sadr's partisans and that "only those fighters charged with crimes would be prosecuted while the majority would be eligible for amnesty."
He said the deal was reached in a meeting attended by Suwaidiy, Iraqi National Security Advisor Qassem Daoud and Colonel Abe Abram of the US military.
Both the government and US military have previously dangled the prospects of investing in the poor district and restoring basic services provided militia lay down their weapons.
Iraq's interior ministry stopped short of giving a full endorsement to the pact.
"As far, as we are concerned at the interior ministy, action speaks louder than words," spokesman Sabah Kadhim told AFP.
"It is an informal understanding. We are cautiously optimistic."
The test will be begin Monday when the Mehdi Army is expected to start handing weapons at designated drop-off locations in Sadr City, Kadhim said.
The US military was not immediately available for comment on the deal, but Abram told AFP Friday all discussions with Sadr's movement could not be described as formal negotiations.
"There is talking, dialogue ... I am neither pessimistic nor optimistic, I'm in the middle," Abram said. "But... we've seen this before, he's done this before."