Rwanda’s Kagame gives cautious welcome to U.S.-brokered peace deal with Congo

KIGALI, Rwanda (AP) – Rwanda’s President Paul Kagame said Friday he was “thankful” for U.S. mediation in his country’s conflict with neighboring Congo following last week’s agreement in Washington. But he warned that the success of the peace deal depends on goodwill from the warring parties.

American mediators “are not the ones to implement what we have agreed,” Kagame told reporters in the capital, Kigali.

“You will never find Rwanda at fault with implementing what we have agreed to do,” he said. “But if the side we are working with plays tricks and takes us back to the problem, then we deal with the problem like we have been dealing with it.”

The comments were Kagame’s first public reaction to the peace deal facilitated by the U.S. to help end the decades-long deadly fighting in eastern Congo. The deal will also help the U.S. government and American companies gain access to critical minerals in the region.

The agreement was signed at the State Department, with Secretary of State Marco Rubio standing between the foreign ministers of Rwanda and Congo. Rubio called it “an important moment after 30 years of war.”

The agreement has provisions on territorial integrity, prohibition of hostilities and the disengagement, disarmament and conditional integration of non-state armed groups.

While the deal is seen as a turning point, analysts don’t believe it will quickly end the fighting because a major belligerent in the conflict – the Rwanda-backed M23 – says it does not apply to it.

M23 is the most prominent armed group in the conflict in eastern Congo, and its major advance early this year left bodies on the streets. With 7 million people displaced in Congo, the United Nations has called it “one of the most protracted, complex, serious humanitarian crises on Earth.”

M23 hasn’t been directly involved in the U.S.-mediated peace deal, although it has been part of other peace talks. The group’s spokesman, Lawrence Kanyuka, said it was “fully committed” to a separate peace process mediated by Qatari officials.

Congo hopes the U.S. will provide it with the security support needed to fight M23 rebels and possibly get them to withdraw from the key cities of Goma and Bukavu, and from the entire region where Rwanda is estimated to have up to 4,000 troops.

Rwanda has said that it’s defending its territorial interests and not supporting M23 despite multiple reports by U.N. experts who cite Rwanda’s military activities in eastern Congo.

Kagame maintains a hardline stance on national security, saying his country will always do what’s necessary to protect itself from rebels it says are embedded within Congo’s army.

“Rwanda cannot live on the whims of others,” he said Friday.

___ Associated Press writer. Wilson McMakin contributed from Dakar, Senegal. Muhumuza reported from Kampala, Uganda.