DRC: Félix Tshisekedi and Paul Kagame agree on ceasefire in Doha

Congolese and Rwandan leaders, meeting in Qatar, have agreed to a ceasefire to the conflict in eastern DRC, according to the Democratic Republic of Congo government. “An immediate and unconditional ceasefire has just been agreed between DRC and Rwanda,” said Tina Salama, spokeswoman for President Félix Tshisekedi, in a post on X.

Presidents Félix Tshisekedi and Paul Kagame met in Doha on Tuesday, 18 March. The talks, first reported by Reuters, were confirmed to Jeune Afrique by a Congolese government official and later made official in a statement.

“The heads of state agreed on the need to continue the dialogue started in Doha to lay solid foundations for lasting peace,” the joint statement said.

A statement later released by Tshisekedi’s office says he “agreed with his Rwandan counterpart to continue the discussions in pursuit of a lasting settlement that will aim to re-establish the DRC’s territorial integrity, stabilise the region, and end the terrible violence perpetrated by the M23 in North and South Kivu.”

The talks came the day after M23 cancelled its planned direct negotiations with Congolese authorities. Those talks were meant to happen on Tuesday in Luanda, under the mediation of Angola’s President João Lourenço.

The rebels and their political arm, the Congo River Alliance (AFC), said they pulled out at the last minute because of fresh sanctions imposed by the European Union.

US mineral deal?

Banking on America’s appetite for the DRC’s mineral riches, a throng of anxious Congolese officials, enterprising foreign lobbyists and ambitious US politicians has been shuffling between Washington and Kinshasa in recent weeks, peddling access to power, dangling an elusive minerals-for-security deal and sowing additional chaos in an already confusing situation.

“What’s on the table is mining concessions, deep-water port operation and to work with the US to build a strategic national stockpile of critical minerals that are of importance to US national security and economic interests, in return for help getting their security situation under control,” one lobbyist tells The Africa Report.