A meeting between the presidents of Rwanda and Democratic Republic of Congo will not take place as planned on Sunday, both countries said, dashing hopes of a deal to curb Congo’s M23 rebel conflict that has displaced more than 1.9 million people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The event was meant to see a rare face-to-face meeting between the central African leaders in Angola, where\u00a0long-running negotiations\u00a0have sought to\u00a0ease tensions\u00a0between the neighbours linked to the almost three-year M23 insurgency.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Expectations that a deal would be signed had raised hopes of an end to a standoff that has further destabilised eastern Congo and\u00a0fanned fears\u00a0of a broader conflict in Africa’s Great Lakes region akin to two devastating wars between 1996 and 2003 that cost millions of lives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“The cancellation of this tripartite is caused by the refusal of the Rwandan delegation to take part,” Congo’s presidency said in a statement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It said on Saturday Rwanda had made the signing of a peace agreement conditional on Congo holding direct talks with M23 rebels, which Congo rejected.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Rwanda\u2019s foreign ministry said this lack of consensus meant it would not have been possible for it to sign Sunday’s agreement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Postponing the meeting would allow Congo time to engage directly with M23, it said in a statement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The peace plan that was set to be signed envisaged Rwanda dismantling what it has called its defensive measures in the conflict in exchange for Congo eliminating a Hutu rebel group, the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), which had attacked Tutsis in both countries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Congo, the United Nations, and others accuse Rwanda of fuelling the rebellion in North Kivu province by deploying its own troops and weapons to support M23, a group formed to defend the interests of Congolese Tutsis, the ethnic group to which Rwandan President Paul Kagame belongs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Rwanda denies this, acknowledging only that it has taken defensive measures, and accuses Congo of recruiting FDLR militants to fight on its side.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There were\u00a03,000-4,000 Rwandan troops\u00a0in Congo with “de facto control” over M23 operations, U.N. experts said this year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The international community needs to do more to push Rwanda to back down, said Congo expert Jason Stearns at Canada’s Simon Fraser University.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“There’s very little pressure, especially as the country putting the most pressure on Rwanda so far is the United States, which is going through a transition of its own,” he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A meeting between the presidents of Rwanda and Democratic Republic of Congo will not take place as planned on Sunday, both countries said, dashing hopes of a deal to curb Congo’s M23 rebel conflict that has displaced more than 1.9 million people. The event was meant to see a rare face-to-face meeting between the central […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":39908,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28,2,15],"tags":[7,30,25],"class_list":{"0":"post-39907","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-culture","8":"category-featured","9":"category-politics","10":"tag-apie-project","11":"tag-culture","12":"tag-politics"},"yoast_head":"\n