UN Security Council urges parties to reach ceasefire

The United Nations Security Council on Monday urged the warring parties in Burundi to hold talks aimed at reaching a ceasefire accord, a statement read to journalists by the Council's current president, Sergey Lavrov, said.

Council members "called on all belligerents to cease hostilities immediately and urged the armed groups to enter into ceasefire negotiations without further delay with a view to concluding a ceasefire agreement".

The members also encouraged cooperation among the Burundian parties "in order to ensure the smooth running of transitional institutions and resolution of pending issues", Lavrov said. "They also strongly support the efforts of the facilitation and regional initiative to expedite ceasefire negotiations."

The statement commended South African troops in the country on "their important contribution to the effort to help bring comprehensive peace to Burundi", and encouraged them to continue their mission in the country.

It also commended efforts to facilitate the voluntary repatriation of refugees "at a measured pace to ensure the safety of returning refugees in the current security situation".

Council members called on the international community to support the process in the framework of the Arusha agreement, and urged the donor community to increase economic, humanitarian and development assistance to Burundi.

Meanwhile, talks between the government delegation and the rebels of Forces pour la defense de la democratie (FDD) in Pretoria, South Africa, had not yet started on Tuesday. The talks, which were to have opened on Monday, failed to do so because some members of the rebel delegation were still stuck in Tanzania due to complications affecting the processing of their travel documents by the Tanzanian authorities, an FDD spokesman, Jean-Marie Ngendahayo, told IRIN.

"We learnt from them that they are now booked to travel on Thursday to South Africa. We have tried to ask if they could travel even on Wednesday," Ngendahayo said on Tuesday. "Otherwise we are waiting here with the government delegation," he added.

Two of the eight members of the FDD delegation to the talks, which are to discuss the modalities on cessation of hostilities, are already in Pretoria.