By Lucy Hannan RI-KWANGBA, Sudan, April 13 (Reuters) - Mozambique's former President Joaquim Chissano met Uganda's elusive guerrilla chief Joseph Kony on Friday to push forward stalled peace talks. Flanked by mediators and Ugandan officials, the U.N. envoy for Uganda's two-decade civil war said he wanted the government and Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) rebels to extend a landmark truce that was agreed last August but has since expired. "It is my hope we will not leave this place without signing the documents which suspend hostilities," Chissano said after watching Kony shake hands with Uganda's top negotiator, Internal Affairs Minister Ruhakana Rugunda. Two days of informal talks are planned in Ri-Kwangba, on the border between Sudan and Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Peace talks began in July in Juba, capital of south Sudan, but effectively broke down in January amid mutual mistrust. The LRA commanders are wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for war crimes, and have so far stayed away from the Juba talks, hidden at camps deep in the Congolese jungle. Joking with Kony as he arrived at tents in the forest clearing accompanied by young rebel fighters in dreadlocks and rubber boots, Chissano said: "I can see your dressed for peace!" The LRA is notorious for massacring civilians, cutting off the lips and ears of survivors and abducting thousands of children to serve as fighters, porters and sex slaves. Nearly 2 million people have been uprooted by the fighting. Hopes for peace were rekindled this week when a Catholic group helping mediate the Juba talks said both sides had made significant progress in a week of secret, informal talks with LRA representatives on the Kenyan coast, mediators said. Pax Christi said broad agreement had been reached on extending the truce, as well as on a number of other areas.
