KAMPALA: Regional leaders yesterday ended a meeting on a proposed neutral force for eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, with no concrete progress but a pledge to meet in a month, according to a statement.
"We will meet again in four weeks," summit host Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni said at the closing session of the two-day summit.
The meeting was hoped to defuse tensions between Rwanda and DR Congo, which have traded accusations of supporting each other's rebels. A statement said the summit had also agreed to set up a committee of regional defense ministers tasked with coming up with "actionable steps to ensure that fighting stops completely."
The committee, made up of seven of the 11 nations in the International Conference on the Great Lakes Region (ICGLR), including Rwanda and DR Congo, will also "provide details on the operationalization of the neutral international force."
Defense ministers from Angola, Burundi, Republic of Congo, Uganda and Tanzania will also be on the committee, which was given a month to submit its report to leaders.
The Kampala summit, as well as last week's meeting of regional defense chiefs in Khartoum, had both been supposed to come up with details of the force.
African Union officials said three weeks ago that the neutral force needed to be up and running in the space of "weeks" rather than months, a prospect that now looks unlikely.
"Leaders are delving deep into complex challenges to come up with a workable plan for a sustainable peace," Rwandan Foreign Minister Louise Mushikiwabo said in a message on Twitter, just before the meeting ended.
The leaders started meeting as US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Tuesday warned Rwanda and other countries in the region to cut off support for rebel forces.
