By Alphonso Toweh
MONROVIA, Oct 28 (Reuters) - Liberia's main rebel group has dropped threats to renege on a pledge to disarm after the country's new leader agreed to reconsider some rebel nominees to senior government positions, the speaker of parliament said.
The rebels last week accused the head of the new transition government, Gyude Bryant, of arbitrarily rejecting rebel nominations for key administrative posts.
They demanded Bryant's resignation and threatened not to disarm unless he quit.
Parliament speaker and senior rebel official George Dweh told reporters late on Monday that Bryant had now agreed to look again at the nominations from the rebel Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD).
"Despite what happened, LURD has resolved to work together in the interest of the nation," Dweh said.
Bryant, a businessman, was picked by warring factions to guide Liberia out of 14 years of civil war, in line with an August peace deal signed after the departure of now-exiled leader Charles Taylor. Bryant was sworn in on October 14.
The accord gave Taylor loyalists and two rebel factions five ministries each in Bryant's government and a series of key posts in the administration. It said each side had to submit a list of nominees who could then be confirmed or rejected by parliament.
However, a row erupted last week after Bryant rejected three nominees put forward by LURD for the posts of deputy head of central bank, chief of staff of the new national army and head of the government's customs and excise department.
Bryant said then that those positions were not included in the allocations made in the peace accord. LURD leader Sekou Damate Conneh in turn accused Bryant of violating the agreement.
In retaliation, LURD fighters have since turned back humanitarian convoys heading into areas they control.
More than 200,000 people have died in fighting since 1989 in Liberia, which was founded by freed American slaves more than 150 years ago as a haven of liberty.
The country was given fresh hope by the departure of Taylor, who left in August under huge international pressure after rebels repeatedly attacked the capital Monrovia.
Those hopes were reinforced by the peace deal, the appointment of Bryant -- seen as neutral during the war -- and the deployment of peacekeepers.
At its full strength of 15,000 troops, the U.N. force in Liberia will be the body's biggest mission since the one that ended a savage conflict in nearby Sierra Leone.
However, diplomats warn that there is plenty of room for discord in a government uniting the war's former foes as well as civilian politicians and civic groups.
One of the toughest tasks will be disarming thousands of fighters inured to murder, rape and pillage, as well as getting hundreds of thousands of refugees back to their homes and paving the way for elections in 2005.