KEY POINTS
- Talks between Rwanda and the DRC were mediated by Angola’s President.
- Rwanda insists on direct talks between the DRC and M23 rebels.
- The M23 militia has seized large areas of eastern DRC since 2021.
- An Angola-mediated ceasefire in August briefly stabilized the front lines.
LUANDA, Angola: Talks due Sunday between the leaders of Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo to end conflict in the eastern DRC were called off after negotiations deadlocked, officials said.
Since 2021 a militia has seized swathes of the eastern DRC, displacing thousands and triggering a humanitarian crisis.
There had been high hopes that the summit hosted by Angola’s President Joao Lourenco — the African Union mediator to end the conflict — would end with a deal to end the conflict.
But around midday Sunday the head of the Angolan presidency’s media office said it would not go ahead.
“Contrary to what we expected, the summit will no longer be held today,” media officer Mario Jorge told journalists.
Lourenco was meeting with DRC leader Felix Tshisekedi and without Rwandan President Paul Kagame, he said.
The Congolese presidency said that negotiations had hit deadlock over a Rwandan demand that the DRC hold direct dialogue with Tutsi M23 rebels who have since 2021 seized swathes of the eastern DRC.
“There is a stalemate because the Rwandans have set as a precondition for the signing of an agreement that the DRC hold a direct dialogue with the M23,” Giscard Kusema, the Congolese presidency spokesman present in Luanda, told AFP.
Rwanda’s Foreign Minister Olivier Nduhungirehe said Friday that his country wanted “a firm commitment from the DRC to resume direct talks with the M23 within a well-defined framework and timeframe”.
The Congolese government says, however, that the M23 only exists because of Rwandan military support.
“If Kigali is in good faith in the negotiations and on its promise to withdraw… its troops from Congolese soil, the conflict will end with the M23, and at the same time it will stop with Rwanda,” a Congolese government source said.
Truce at Front Line
Kagame and Tshisekedi last saw each other in October in Paris but did not speak, though they have maintained dialogue through the mediation of Luanda.
In early August, Angola mediated a fragile truce that stabilised the situation at the front line, but both sides continued to exchange fire and clashes have intensified since late October.
“Our country continues to face persistent rebellions, including the aggression by the Rwandan army and the M23 terrorists,” Tshisekedi said in parliament Wednesday.
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The capital of DRC’s North Kivu province Goma, home to about one million people and another million displaced by war, is now nearly surrounded by M23 rebels and the Rwandan army.
Early in November, the two central African neighbours launched a committee to monitor ceasefire violations, led by Angola and including representatives from both the DRC and Rwanda.
Kinshasa and Kigali a few weeks later approved a document setting out the terms by which Rwandan troops will disengage from Congolese territory.
