DR Congo, rebels agree to resume peace talks

Rebels from the Democratic Republic of Congo's M23 movement said Thursday they will resume peace talks with the government of the violence-hit country, agreeing to a demand from leaders of Africa's Great Lakes region. Talks between the two sides were suspended in May, and the agreement to reopen them follows a recent upsurge in violence in the country, where Congolese troops backed by a special United Nations force launched a fresh assault against the rebels late last month. On Thursday, regional leaders meeting in the Ugandan capital issued a statement demanding the resumption of talks between the two sides within three days, to be concluded within 14 days. "So as to enable the talks to be rapidly concluded... M23 should put an end to all military activities, and to stop war and threats of overthrowing the lawful government of DRC," it said. M23 leader Bertrand Bisimwa told AFP the rebels were ready to resume talks with Kinshasa following months of deadlock. "Our delegates are already in Kampala. They are ready to negotiate with Kinshasa immediately as soon as the request has been passed on by the mediator," Bisimwa said by telephone. The rebel leader said he hoped the talks would address the "deep-seated causes of the conflict" and that Kinshasa would "really get involved". The Congolese government cautiously welcomed the M23's announcement. "We had the impression that some wanted to drag things out," spokesman Lambert Mende told AFP, adding that Kinshasa had "never left the table". The M23 movement was launched by Tutsi soldiers who mutinied from Congo's army in April 2012 and turned their guns on their former comrades. Last week the rebels moved back from positions around Goma, the capital of North Kivu province, which they seized for 12 days last November before pulling out under international pressure. The meeting of the 11-member International Conference on the Great Lakes Region (ICGLR) is the seventh such summit held to try to find a lasting solution. Ugandan foreign ministry spokesman Elly Kamahungye told AFP that a private meeting also took place between DR Congo's leader Joseph Kabila and his Rwandan counterpart Paul Kagame, a claim Kinshasa rejected. "They didn't meet privately," Kabila's press spokesman Andre Ngwej Katot told AFP, "They met with all the other heads of state". Conflict in the fertile and valuable mining region has in the past dragged regional powers into the fighting, with both Rwanda and Uganda accused of backing the M23, claims they flatly deny. Rwanda's Kagame met separately with Tanzanian leader Jakaya Kikwete, following months of tense relations between their two nations. The two leaders "met face to face for a little over an hour," a spokesman for the Tanzanian president said. Tanzanian troops form a key part of a newly deployed UN military intervention force specially mandated to "neutralise" rebel units using force if necessary. UN special envoy Mary Robinson and African Union Commission chief Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma were also at the talks, at a luxury lakeside resort outside Kampala. Robinson, the former president of Ireland, on Monday toured conflict zones in eastern Congo, where she demanded that M23 fighters "must cease violence, must disarm as the UN Security Council demanded". She is expected to travel on to the Rwandan capital Kigali on Friday.