By Evelyn Leopold UNITED NATIONS, March 22 (Reuters) - The next round of talks between Uganda's rebel Lord's Resistance Army and the government is expected in the second week of April in an attempt to end a 20-year-old insurgency, a U.N. envoy said. Joacquim Chissano, the former president of Mozambique, told reporters on Thursday the talks would be a preliminary discussion to resuming the stalled negotiations in the southern Sudanese town of Juba. Chissano, the special U.N. envoy for LRA-affected areas, briefed the 15-member U.N. Security Council, which issued a statement supporting his efforts and backing negotiations to end the conflict that has devastated northern Uganda. The LRA, whose leaders are under indictment by the Hague-based International Criminal Court, are notorious for kidnapping thousands of children, forcing them to fight or become sex slaves and mutilating civilians. About 2 million people have been forced out of their homes into camps. Negotiations broke down in January with the LRA citing security fears and demanding the talks move out of Juba. But Chissano convinced them to return to the talks after he met LRA leader Joseph Kony near his hide-out in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo. Chissano said negotiators were going to "have a meeting, preliminary to the resumption of talks in Juba in the second week of April." He added that council members "said I am going in the right direction." Asked if the indictments were an obstacle, Chissano said the only difficulty the five warrants posed was that those indicted, including Kony, would not participate in the Juba talks. Measures to restore LRA confidence include expanding the mediating team initiated by the vice president of southern Sudan, Riek Machar, whom the LRA distrust, with delegates from five other African countries. The LRA also wants Ugandan troops out of southern Sudan, where they were allowed to enter several years ago in pursuit of the LRA. Uganda maintains it needs to monitor the LRA. In its statement, the Security Council said it looked forward to Chissano's "continued engagement on the issue" since his appointment by former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan in November. "The Security Council urges the LRA to immediately release all women, children and other noncombatants," said the policy statement read at a formal meeting by South African Ambassador Dumisani Kumalo, this month's council president.
