DR Congo, Rwanda outline deal on mining, economic cooperation

Rwanda's President Paul Kagame (L) during the World Economic Forum Special Meeting in Riyadh on Apr. 8, 2024 and President of the Democratic Republic of the Congo Felix Tshisekedi, Apr. 29, 2024. [AFP] The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Rwanda have reached an outline economic cooperation accord during their first talks since signing a peace deal, the United States said late Friday. A peace agreement reached in June aimed to end decades of conflict in eastern Congo. It was overseen by Washington which has sought to increase its access to the region's vast mineral wealth. The "economic integration framework" initialled on Friday is part of the peace accord, the US State Department said . It is designed, according to the peace deal, to introduce greater transparency into supply chains for critical minerals such as coltan and lithium and should be effective by the end of September. The State Department said the two countries had agreed to coordinate "in areas including energy, infrastructure, mining, national park management and tourism, and public health", without giving further details. Eastern DRC, a region bordering Rwanda with abundant natural resources, saw a fresh surge of violence this year when the M23 armed group, backed by Rwandan troops, captured the key cities of Goma and Bukavu. After months of broken truces, the DRC and M23 signed a declaration of principle on June 19 reaffirming their commitment to a permanent ceasefire. Two days earlier, the Kinshasa government inked an agreement with US group Kobold Metals, which specialises in exploring for critical metals. DRC President Felix Tshisekedi said in April he had met US envoy Massad Boulos to discuss access to minerals. Coveted minerals The DRC is the world's leading producer of cobalt. It also has deposits of gold and other valuable minerals including coltan, a metallic ore that is vital in making phones and laptops, and lithium, which is essential for electric car batteries. On Thursday and Friday, representatives from the DRC and Rwanda, alongside observers from the United States, Qatar and the African Union, held their first meetings in Washington since signing the peace deal. The US said the economic framework and a meeting on Thursday of the countries' peace deal monitoring committee were "significant step", saying the African neighbours were "taking meaningful actions to advance security and economic cooperation". The peace deal has been welcomed by the African Union and the United Nations, even if analysts remain sceptical about the chances of long-term peace while militias still hold sway in much of eastern DRC. The UN says thousands have been killed in the recent unrest and hundreds of thousands displaced. Rwanda denies providing military support to the M23 but says its security has long been threatened by the presence in the region of the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), established by ethnic Hutus linked to the massacres of Tutsis in the 1994 Rwandan genocide. Kinshasa and the M23 have given themselves until August 8 to start talks on a comprehensive peace accord, to be signed by August 17. Analysts view such deadlines as unrealistic, especially given the M23's reluctance to withdraw from areas it controls.

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