The DR Congo government will grant amnesty to members of the M23 rebel group, as well as offer them positions in the national army if they agree to lay down arms and sign a peace accord this week.

On Monday, Reuters news agency reported that a draft peace plan by the DRC government proposes that the M23 rebels should hand in their weapons ahead of the deployment of UN peacekeepers in eastern Congo border with Rwanda.

Also, rebels who are not facing prosecution would be integrated into the army while the government would, in turn, speed up the return of Congolese ethnic Tutsi refugees from Rwanda.

The deal also offers M23 fighters a limited amnesty.

"It's a working document ... on March 15 negotiations will be finished in one way or another, with or without a signature," Congolese government spokesman Lambert Mende said, without saying what would happen if the rebels did not sign.

Mende said the draft peace plan was a reworking of an agreement signed in 2009 to end a previous rebellion. The M23 rebels said they took up arms last year because of the failure to implement that deal.

In the past weeks, internal clashes within the military command have rocked the M23 rebel group.

This prompted Col. Sultani Makenga to sack the political leader Jean Marie Runiga for his links with Gen. Bosco Ntaganda who is wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC).

Government spokesman Mende declined to discuss specifics, but the latest deal would appear to prevent Ntaganda's re-integration this time. "You won't get back in if you're a criminal," he said.

A high-ranking M23 military source close to Makenga told Reuters that M23 was prepared to sign the deal with the DRC government.

However, Bertrand Bisimwa, the newly appointed M23 political leader said he was not aware of any deal.

"We don't know of its existence or content. We're surprised it's circulating in the media," Bisimwa told Reuters on Monday.