By Patrick Worsnip UNITED NATIONS, Jan 15 (Reuters) - A U.N. envoy called on the Security Council on Thursday to put pressure on Congo's government and a rebel group to speed up talks on a ceasefire in the turbulent east of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Envoys of the Kinshasa government and the Tutsi-dominated National Congress for the Defense of the People (CNDP), which routed the U.N.-backed Congolese army late last year, began the talks last month in Kenya's capital Nairobi. "While slowly picking up, the pace of the dialogue still remains slow," former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, U.N. special envoy for east Africa's Great Lakes region, told the council in a briefing. "I would appeal to the council to use whatever leverage it may have on the parties to improve matters." If there continued to be obstruction, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon might call on the council to consider "other measures" to encourage progress, Obasanjo said without elaborating. A further problem was that although the talks involved just Kinshasa and the CNDP, any solution needed to take account of the interests of more than 20 armed groups in the region, Obasanjo said. Because of intransigence by both sides, mediators on Thursday called a recess in the talks, which would resume towards the end of next week, he added. The recent fighting displaced a quarter of a million people in eastern Congo. CNDP leader Gen. Laurent Nkunda launched his rebellion in 2004 saying he wanted to protect minority Tutsis from attacks by Hutu rebels from neighboring Rwanda. One sticking point in the talks is a demand by Nkunda that government forces withdraw from Kibati, north of the eastern city of Goma. But earlier this week the sides finally agreed ground rules for substantive discussions, Obasanjo said. The Nigerian envoy also said he was encouraged by an improvement in relations between Congolese President Joseph Kabila and Rwandan President Paul Kagame, whose rivalry Western diplomats say is key to the situation in eastern Congo. Obasanjo said any ceasefire agreed would need an independent monitoring mechanism and he appealed to council members to help set one up. Further talks would need to focus first on ways of enabling refugees to return home before the planting season in September, then move on to political and economic issues, he added. (Editing by Cynthia Osterman)
Tanzania's former president Benjamin Mkapa speaks during the third round of peace talks between the Congolese government and eastern Congolese rebel group of General Laurent Nkunda at the U.N. headquarters in ...
