The government of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DR Congo) has unveiled key steps to end months of fighting with Tutsi rebels and tensions with neighboring Rwanda.
Foreign Minister Alexis Thambe Mwamba said on Friday that the government will hold talks to "formalize" a ceasefire with the National Congress for the Defense of the People (CNDP) led by renegade commander Laurent Nkunda.
The talks is scheduled for Monday in the Kenyan capital Nairobi, where African leaders met last month in search for a solution to the crisis in the east of the vast central African state.
The government had previously rejected direct talks with the CNDP, saying it was open to talks with all rebel groups.
In January, the government signed a peace accord with more than20 armed groups including the CNDP, which resumed revolts in August accusing Kinshasa of failing to protect ethnic Tutsis from attacks by the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) .
Kinshasa's agreement to talks with the CNDP is the latest gesture to calm down the situation where Nkunda vows to go ahead with military advances unless the government opens direct dialogue with his group.
Nkunda unilaterally declared a ceasefire in late October amid international calls for a halt of violence. But the ceasefire soon collapsed and fighting resumed.
A number of diplomats have visited the country, all urging both sides to observe the ceasefire before talking on anything else.
Kinshasa's another key step is to reconcile with Rwanda. On Thursday, Mwamba said both countries have agreed on an African peace plan, under which the DR Congo will disband the FDLR while Rwanda will help restore peace in its west neighbor.
The issue of the FDLR remains a root cause of tensions between the two countries. Elements of the militia group were held responsible for the 1994 massacre in Rwanda.
The militia have been holed up in the east of the DR Congo since the Tutsi-led movement took power in Rwanda. Their presence triggers hostilities from both ethnic Tutsis within the border and from Rwanda.
With the FDLR to be uprooted, the two countries expect their relations to be normalized with the reopening of their embassies in each other's capital, according to Mwamba.
Mwamba and his Rwandan counterpart Rosemary Museminali are holding the fourth round of bilateral talks in Goma, the provincial capital of North Kivu, where the clash has displaced more than 230,000 people. The bilateral talks will last till Sunday.
The escalation of clash in the DR Congo has not only caused widespread concerns over the humanitarian situation, but the stability in the entire Great Lakes region.
In the past weeks, Kinshasa accused Rwanda of backing the CNDP in its advances, while the CNDP said the government was seeking military support from Angola.
At the Nairobi summit, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said the international community would never allow the conflict to develop into another Congo war.
The 1998-2003 Congo war sucked in several countries including Angola, Zimbabwe, Rwanda and Uganda. More than 5 million people died in the bloodshed.
To intensify the peace efforts, UN special envoy Olusegun Obasanjo traveled to the DR Congo for two times last month to persuade both sides to halt the military action.
Military officials of the Southern African Development Community also sent a fact-finding mission to the country to evaluate the humanitarian situation.
The most important step was taken by the UN Security Council, which decided to add 3,100 troops to the 17,000- strong peace mission in the DR Congo, the ever largest force the world body has sent to contain conflicts in a country.
Source: Xinhua
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