Lebanon's new prime minister has met with various Palestinian factions and the sides have formed a committee to arrange for the eventual removal of Palestinian weapons outside refugee camps and for their regulation inside camps.

The committee also will examine the possibility of the Palestinians opening an embassy in Lebanon for the first time.

The weapons issue is expected to come up when Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas meets this week in Paris with President Jacques Chirac of France, a sponsor of a 2004 U.N. resolution that called for disarming all militants in Lebanon, including Palestinian groups and Hezbollah.

Terje Roed-Larsen, the U.N. special envoy on Syria and Lebanon, also will hold separate talks with Abbas and Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Saniora on the Palestinian militias before both Arab leaders meet for a Paris summit Tuesday, U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said.

The issues of Palestinian weapons and a Palestinian embassy in Lebanon are expected to be on the summit agenda, and both leaders are likely to issue a statement on a "common road map," an official close to the talks said on condition of anonymity as he was unauthorized to comment.

Armed Palestinians have long been a source of dangerous instability and violence in Lebanon. But some Palestinians - who came here as refugees after the 1948 war that created Israel - have strong feelings against surrendering any weapons amid Lebanon's rapidly changing political climate.

They say the weapons are needed to guard against Israeli attack.

Umm Bilal, a 47-year-old woman putting potatoes into a bag at this refugee camp in southern Lebanon, insisted the United States was pressuring Lebanon into clamping down on Palestinians. Giving up weapons would be a "big mistake," she said.

"Let them return us to our homes (in Palestine), and then we would not need weapons anymore," she said.

The commander of the mainstream guerrilla Fatah faction in Ein el-Hilweh, Col. Khaled Aref, says Palestinians need weapons in the camps because of the volatility of the security situation, but he agreed the weapons should be regulated.

"If we have to die, at least let us die with honor. ... Does the world expect us to surrender and be slaughtered like sheep without any kind of resistance, like in 1982?" he asked, referring to the massacres of hundreds in Beirut refugee camps that year by pro-Israeli militiamen.

Lebanon has long viewed the armed Palestinians with suspicion, largely due to the guerrillas' role in the 1975-90 civil war. Their cross-border attacks into Israel in the 1970s and 1980s also led to two Israeli invasions of Lebanon.

But neither Syria nor the governments it installed in Beirut in the past had any desire to end the Palestinian military presence: Instead, the weapons were widely seen as Syria's trump card in future negotiations with Israel.

Now, however, with Syria's pullout in April after nearly three decades of military domination, the Lebanese and the Palestinians are able to talk freely.

The weapons issue has taken on added urgency because Lebanon's new government - anti-Syrian in outlook - also worries Syria might use Palestinian factions to stir up trouble here.

"There is no need for weapons outside the refugee camps. It does not serve the Palestinian cause and is unacceptable. As for weapons inside the camps, these will be dealt with through dialogue," Saniora said earlier this month.

According to Palestinian Authority officials, preliminary talks with the Lebanese government resulted in an agreement that Palestinian weapons would be confined to the refugee camps, while the fate of those weapons and the possibility of a Palestinian embassy in Lebanon would be discussed in future talks.

No one knows exactly how many weapons are in the 12 Palestinian shantytowns that dot Lebanon. But many of the 350,000 refugees own firearms, and the guerrilla factions have thousands of fighters.

Ein el-Hilweh, the largest camp and home to 65,000 people, is, in particular, a jungle of armed guerrillas where firefights are common and disputes are regularly settled by the gun.

Although the government recently relaxed rules that for decades denied refugees the right to work in most jobs, they continue to live in poverty with little health care - many on handouts from U.N. agencies. They are also banned from owning property.

Lebanese fear the Palestinians will end up settling here, upsetting the delicate Christian-Muslim balance further in favor of Muslims in this country of 4 million people.

Already some camps are havens for outlaws and militants. In addition, some factions have set up bases outside the camps, on the coast near Beirut or inland on Syria's border.

Lebanese worry those areas, where the government has no control, could be used to carry out attacks like the bombings and attacks on journalists and politicians that have rocked Lebanon recently.

The army has in recent days sealed off Palestinian guerrilla bases, threatening a military confrontation, after media reports that Syrian-backed guerrillas were bringing in fresh weapons from Damascus.

The Lebanese army has checkpoints outside the camps, but has no presence inside. And authorities fear any attempt to storm the camps could result in major bloodshed. (AP)