Annan holds talks with Kabila on peace process

UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan met with DRC President Joseph Kabila in Kinshasa on Sunday during a recent three-day visit to encourage recent progress in efforts to bring an end to the country’s three-year civil war. “Our duty is to continue to accompany this peace process so that it becomes irreversible,” AP quoted Annan as saying of the UN, which has 3,000 unarmed observers and armed troops in the DRC. According to AP, Annan said progress was being made, citing Uganda’s ongoing withdrawal of most of its forces and Namibia’s withdrawal from all but the capital, Kinshasa. “If the Congolese work together, I believe that it will encourage foreigners to leave the country,” BBC quoted Annan as saying. Assessing the current situation, Kabila told RTNC TV that “to us in Kinshasa, the situation now is, I could say, calm. But, I would also want to add that it is a situation that could be described as a no-peace-no-war situation. No peace, because there are still [obstacles] to peace. No war, because there is a ceasefire.”

Annan also met with the facilitator for the inter-Congolese dialogue, former Botswana President Ketumile Masire. At preparatory talks held two weeks ago in Gaborone, Botswana, delegates from the government, armed and unarmed opposition, and civil society agreed to begin the peace and reconciliation dialogue, mandated by the Lusaka peace agreement, on 15 October in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.