The KLA was required to turn in all its heavy weapons and 30% of its automatic arms by midnight on Wednesday.

The meeting, which was to have taken place on Thursday, has been moved to Saturday.

The peacekeeping force, K-For, is reported to want more time to compare the number of weapons the KLA has declared with its own estimates of how many weapons the group possesses.

Nato said thousands of AK-47 assault rifles had been turned in, as well as heavy machine guns, anti-tank, and anti-aircraft missiles and grenades.

Nick Childs in Pristina: "This is a key test of KLA promises."

The head of the peacekeeping force in Kosovo, General Sir Michael Jackson said he was pleased to see the amount of heavy weaponry and ammunition that had already been surrendered when he visited a storage depot for KLA weapons on Tuesday.

90-day deadline

The KLA fighters were required to hand in their weapons at 19 storage sites in the Serbian province.

The BBC's Jeremy Cooke: "Rebels fighters have relied on these weapons in their war against the Serbs"

Few people expected all the KLA's weapons to be handed in, but correspondents say Nato is keen to show that it is enforcing this agreement as rigorously as it did that on the Serb military withdrawal from the province.

The first deadline for demilitarisation was on 28 June, when the KLA was required to have assembled all its fighters in K-For-supervised areas and established weapons storage sites.

The KLA said only half of its fighters, which it estimated at 20,000 men at that time, had turned up by the deadline, while K-For said the real number of attendees was 3,735.

The final 90-day deadline for the KLA's complete demilitarisation - which would see all weapons except hunting rifles and the like turned over - is in September.

Urgent aid

As Nato disarmed the rebels, aid officials added up the cost of returning some sense of normality to the war-battered province.

The UN refugee agency said on Wednesday at least $333 million is needed this year.

And the head of the World Bank, James Wolfensohn, said Kosovo needed $40-$75m over the next couple of months for housing, utility repairs and other urgent needs.

Mr Wolfensohn has been visiting the province ahead of a meeting of donor governments and organisations in Brussels next week.

The refugee agency said at least one quarter of Kosovo's buildings had been destroyed.