The Congolese Minister of Foreign Affairs officially announced it on Sunday December 16, just a few hours after the cancellation of the summit which should have been held between Paul Kagame and Félix Tshisekedi in Luanda: following this missed meeting, she intended to invite the ambassadors of the DRC’s “partner” countries to explain Kinshasa’s position to them. Things did not drag on since it was done on the afternoon of Monday, December 16: several diplomats stationed in the Congolese capital actually went to his ministry with, among them in particular, representatives of France , the European Union and Belgium.
On the occasion of this meeting, Thérèse Wagner notably wanted to return to the reason behind the failure of the Luanda summit: the condition – unacceptable in the eyes of the Congolese authorities – posed by Rwanda that before any talks, the DRC accepts a direct dialogue with the M23. If last weekend’s summit was canceled precisely for this reason – Paul Kagame ultimately did not take the plane – the head of Congolese diplomacy assured her hosts that her country had never given its agreement for such a dialogue with the armed group upstream. According to her, the Angolan mediation had simply proposed, during the preparatory ministerial meeting on Saturday evening, that the point be put on the table at the summit of heads of state, an option which would have been refused by Rwanda.
The question then remains of how the M23 could find its place there. “The integration – or reintegration – of the M23 into the Nairobi process is possible, but this challenge requires this framework to be revitalized,” explains Professor Martin Ziakawu, an expert in international relations.
The Nairobi process, another possible outcome to the conflict?
Still within the framework of this meeting, Thérèse Wagner again mentioned a regular request from the Congolese authorities since the start of the conflict in eastern DRC, namely the establishment of economic sanctions against Kigali and against several Rwandan officials. cited in United Nations reports.
She finally suggested that the Luanda process was not the only possible outcome for resolving the crisis in Kivu and that the Nairobi process was supposed to create a framework for dialogue between the armed groups of eastern DRC, could also represent a possible alternative.
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