Representatives from the government and Free Aceh Movement (GAM) met Tuesday and agreed to complete the third of four phases of troop withdrawal and hand over of guerilla weapons ahead of schedule in November, the Aceh Monitoring Mission (AMM) said.

Each of the four phases agreed under the historic peace pact, aimed at ending a separatist conflict in the tsunami-hit province, was scheduled to start in the middle of each month. But the third phase will now be completed around November 14, the AMM said in a statement.

Indonesia has redeployed half of the 24,000 troops sent to Aceh to control the province following completion of the second phase of the agreement.

The remainder and a large contingent of military police will follow once GAM fulfills its commitment to hand over the second half of its declared 840 weapon arsenal in two stages by the end of the year.

Observers see the agreement as the best chance yet of ending the conflict which has claimed about 15,000 lives, most of them civilians, since GAM began its struggle for an independent state in 1976.

Under the agreement, GAM dropped its long-held demand for independence in exchange for a form of local government in Aceh, a province of about four million people.

The peace pact was spurred by the December 2004 tsunami disaster, which left 131,000 people dead in Aceh.