The weapons collected on Friday, including machineguns and rocket-propelled grenade (RPG) launchers, came from the Communist Party, the Islamic Movement, the Democratic National Union and the Democratic Action Party.

Some of the weapons had also been handed over by residents of the region, Ismael said, but could not tell the exact number of arms delivered to Kurdish police following the US-led coalition's decision to regulate the possession of weapons in Iraq.

The Turkmen Front, which groups three Turkmen parties close to Ankara, has refused to surrender banned weapons, according to KTV, the television station of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) that controls Arbil.

Fighters of the KDP and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), the two main parties that have shared control of Iraqi Kurdistan since 1991, were exempted from a coalition order to Iraqi militias to lay down their weapons by mid-June.

The exemption applies to three northern provinces under Kurdish control.

The two parties, which allied themselves with coalition forces that ousted the regime of Iraqi president Saddam Hussein in April, last month signed an agreement restricting the use of weapons in the area.

WAR.WIRE