Jakarta – Former rebels in Indonesia's Aceh province successfully ended the third round of a weapons handover on Tuesday after struggling to surrender enough arms that met the criteria of international peace monitors.

Juri Laas, a spokesman for the European-led Aceh Monitoring Mission overseeing a landmark peace pact, said former rebels handed in 57 weapons on Tuesday and monitors accepted all but one piece. "It means the third phase has been completed," he said.

Under the August 15 peace deal, the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) has to give up 840 functional weapons to monitors by the year-end during four phases. In turn, Indonesia, which had 30,000 soldiers and 15,000 policemen in Aceh before the truce, is required to trim its forces to no more than 14,700 soldiers and 9,100 police.

GAM was 44 weapons short of the 210 target under the third round deadline late last week, forcing an extension.

Indonesia's military began pulling more soldiers out of Aceh on Saturday under the third stage of the pact, which ended a three-decade war between the government and separatists that killed 15,000 people, mainly civilians.

The military has said 5,700 soldiers and 1,350 policemen would leave the province on the northern tip of Sumatra island by Friday under the third withdrawal stage.

During the first two phases of decommissioning, GAM surrendered a total of 570 weapons. Of these, 424 were accepted by both monitors and the government. A further 52 weapons were accepted by monitors but are still disputed by Jakarta, the monitors have said.

GAM and Indonesia's government signed the peace pact after months of negotiation spurred by the December 26 tsunami that smashed into Indian Ocean coastlines. That disaster left around 170,000 Acehnese dead or missing, and put pressure on the two sides to end their conflict.