A spokesperson for DRC’s President Felix Tshisekedi informed the Reuters information company that they’d obtained an invite from Angola for the talks.
The federal government of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the Rwanda-backed M23 rebels will maintain talks subsequent week, mediator Angola has introduced.
An announcement from President Joao Lourenco’s workplace on Wednesday stated the 2 events would start “direct peace negotiations” within the Angolan capital Luanda on March 18.
Angola has beforehand acted as a mediator within the jap DRC battle that escalated in late January when the M23 took management of the strategic jap Congo metropolis of Goma. In February, M23 seized Bukavu, jap Congo’s second-biggest metropolis.
Rwanda denies backing the M23 armed group within the battle, which is rooted within the unfold of Rwanda’s 1994 genocide into DRC, and the wrestle for management of DRC’s huge mineral sources.
DRC President Felix Tshisekedi was in Angola on Tuesday to debate the opportunity of talks and his spokesperson Tina Salama informed the Reuters information company on Wednesday that the federal government had obtained an invite from Angola however didn’t say whether or not it might take part within the talks.
M23 chief Bertrand Bisimwa wrote on X that the rebels had compelled Tshisekedi to the negotiating desk, calling it “the one civilized choice to resolve the present disaster that has lasted for many years.”
The federal government has stated no less than 7,000 folks have died within the battle since January.
Final week, the United Nations refugee company reported that just about 80,000 folks have fled the nation as a result of armed battle. Since January, 61,000 have arrived in neighbouring Burundi, the company’s deputy director of worldwide safety, Patrick Eba, stated.
M23 is one in every of about 100 armed teams vying to manage sources in jap Congo, dwelling to huge reserves of strategic minerals similar to coltan, cobalt, copper and lithium.
DRC’s neighbours, together with South Africa, Burundi, and Uganda, have troops stationed in east Congo, rising fears of an all-out regional warfare that would resemble the Congo wars of the Nineties and early 2000s that killed tens of millions of individuals.
