London - Northern Ireland's biggest and most lethal Protestant paramilitary groups have begun the process of arms decommissioning, reports in London said Thursday.

Indirect confirmation of the move came from Hugh Orde, the police chief of Northern Ireland, who welcomed the decision as "very good news."

It would be the first act of decommissioning by a mainstream Protestant paramilitary group, and comes nearly four years after the much bigger Catholic Irish Republican Army (IRA) gave up its weapons.

The BBC said that General John de Chastelain, the Canadian head of the Independent International Commission on Decommissioning (IICC) had informed the British government of the development.

It involves primarily the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) - one of the biggest and most notorious paramilitary organizations in Northern Ireland - blamed for murdering more than 500 people during the 30 years of conflict and civil strife in the British province.

The UVF declared it was renouncing violence in 2007, but there were no signs that weapons were being handed in. The decommissioning process was laid down in the
1998 Northern Ireland Peace Agreement.

The UVF is closely linked to the Ulster Defence Association (UDA), but it was not clear Thursday whether it, too, had started handing back its weapons.

The British government has given both groups an August deadline for "significant progress" on arms decommissioning, seen as the final step towards permanent peace.

"I think it is a step change which shows a degree of organization and commitment that perhaps we have not seen before. More guns are off the streets as a result of the decision," Orde said Thursday.

He said he believed the UDA had taken a similar decision. (dpa)