On late Monday, Bintou Keita, chief of the United Nations Organization Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUSCO) announced and initiated the withdrawal of the mission in the country.
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According to the Keita, at a joint conference with Patrick Muyaya, the Congolese Minister of Communication and Media, the withdrawal is made "on the basis of the achievement of the minimum conditions of the most important milestones of the transition plan."
According to Muyaya, the Congolese government granted the request for the departure of MONUSCO, while stating that "the process must be done in an organized, civilized and structured manner."
"We cannot set a date, because there may be several unforeseen and imponderables," Muyaya said.
"You don't dismantle a mission in a day."
Official data show that the UN peacekeeping mission has been present in the country since 1999. Moreover, it is one of the largest and most expensive in the world, with an annual budget of around 1 billion dollars.
In January, António Guterres, UN chief, put forward three options for amending the mission, from an increase in personnel to a withdrawal of troops.
In a report published at the beginning of the week, Guterres recommended to the Council an intermediate solution, to "reconfigure" the mission to concentrate on a limited number of priorities.