Foreign minister comments on Cotonou meeting

DRC's Foreign Minister Yerodia Abdoulaye Ndombasi on Tuesday told journalists that the government did not attend the preparatory inter-Congolese dialogue meeting in Cotonou, Benin, because of the last month's massacre in Katagota, South Kivu. "It is out of the question that at a time when we are particularly angry over the last massacre, which has reached the zenith, the accomplices, acolytes, architects and actors of the massacre should sit down calmly with us to fix the modalities for holding the inter-Congolese dialogue," Ndombasi said. On President Kabila's meeting with his Rwandan counterpart Paul Kagame in Kenya, he said this had been prepared long in advance "at the request of Kenya's President Daniel arap Moi, who wanted to help the DRC to put an end to the aggression". "I knew about this meeting ever since I returned from Mauritius so there is no contradiction," he said adding that, "Kabila's meeting with Kagame was aimed at putting an end to the war".