Algeria, a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council, maintained contacts with various African countries to advance a peaceful solution to the conflict in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), the Ministry of Foreign Affairs reported on Sunday.

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Algeria, Congo, and Rwanda examined “the measures that can put an end to the dangerous escalation of the conflict in eastern DRC and open a path for an effective reactivation of the political process aimed at definitively resolving the conflict,” the statement noted.

“Algerian Foreign Minister Ahmed Attaf spoke today with several of his African counterparts involved in the conflict in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, as well as the countries engaged in mediation efforts to ensure a peaceful solution to this conflict,” it added.

The head of Algerian diplomacy assured “his interlocutors of Algeria’s full support, as well as the willingness of the Maghreb country to accompany them” in the pursuit of peace for the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the Great Lakes region as a whole.

Algeria announced the upcoming holding of a summit aimed at “initiating a return to ceasefire in the DRC and promoting the conditions for lasting peace in the region,” an initiative from the East African Community and the Southern African Development Community (SADC).

Attaaf also praised the participation of Angola and Kenya in the Luanda and Nairobi initiatives for the crisis in the DRC. The need for diplomatic mobilization on the continent was agreed and the proposal of a joint conclave by the East African Community and the Southern African Development Community was welcomed, considered as an opportunity to restore the ceasefire and promote lasting peace in the region.

The offensive in the past week by the M23 – an armed group primarily composed of Tutsis who suffered during the 1994 Rwandan genocide – has heightened tensions with neighboring Rwanda, as the Congolese government accuses the Rwandan government of supporting the rebels, a claim that the UN has confirmed.

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