By Humphrey Malalo NAIROBI, Dec 9 (Reuters) - Eastern Congo rebels and the government made progress and will meet again soon after the first face-to-face talks to defuse tensions that have threatened to trigger another regional war, a mediator said on Tuesday. Diplomats had cautiously welcomed the two days of talks in Nairobi, even though neither Congolese President Joseph Kabila nor General Laurent Nkunda, head of the rebel National Congress for the Defence of the People (CNDP), took part. "They have made progress in their talks and they will continue," Olusegun Obasanjo, a former Nigerian president who is now U.N. special envoy for the conflict in the east of Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), told reporters. The talks were aimed at ending fighting in DRC's North Kivu province between the military and Nkunda's Tutsi rebels that has displaced a quarter of a million people since August. Obasanjo said substantive discussions would take place before Christmas, but the date and location had yet to be decided. "The doors are not closed," he added, saying that "other parties" were welcome to join the talks. He did not elaborate. At the weekend, the Kinshasa government invited some 20 other armed groups to the U.N.-hosted talks -- but the CNDP said it would not sit down with other insurgents. No other rebel groups turned up, and the two delegations held two days of private meetings. The CNDP declared a ceasefire after reaching the gates of North Kivu's provincial capital Goma in late October. The truce has been generally respected by both the rebels and the army, leading to more than a month of relative calm in the area. But clashes continue between Nkunda's fighters, Mai Mai militia and Rwandan Hutu rebels, who roam a region rich in gold, diamonds, coltan and tin and who often support Kabila's weak and chaotic army. Congo and Rwanda agreed last week to disband a Rwandan Hutu militia, the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), in eastern Congo. DRC's 1998-2003 war sucked in six neighbouring armies and caused more than five million deaths. The FDLR includes in its ranks perpetrators of the 1994 genocide of Tutsis by Hutus in neighbouring Rwanda. Congo accuses Tutsi rebel Nkunda of receiving support from the Tutsi-led Rwandan government of President Paul Kagame. (Writing by Daniel Wallis, editing by Mark Trevelyan)
RNPS IMAGES OF THE YEAR 2008 The wreckage of the Hewa Bora Airways passenger jet burns at its crash site in Goma, capital of Democratic Republic of Congo's eastern North Kivu ...
