Citation
DAR ES SALAAM, March 4 (AFP) - Rwandan Prime Minister Dismas Nsengiyaremye and the rebel Rwanda Patriotic Front (RPF) chairman Alex Kanyarengwe arrived here Thursday afternoon ready for a high-level contact meeting on Friday to seek revival of their stalled peace talks.
Tanzanian foreign ministry director Ami Mpungwe told AFP here that the meeting, to be chaired by Tanzanian Prime Minister John Malecela, was scheduled to start behind closed doors on Friday morning.
The Friday meeting was convened by Tanzanian President Ali Hassan Mwinyi in his capacity as the official facilitator of the Rwanda peace process which broke down at Arusha in northern Tanzania early last month.
The talks were postponed indefinitely after the RPF launched an anti-government offensive in what it claimed was aimed at stopping a massacre of the minority Tutsis by supporters and soldiers of the majority Hutu regime of President Juvenal Habyarimana.
Mpungwe said the contact meeting will seek a solution to violations of and non-compliance with an internationally-brokered ceasefire that was reached last July at Arusha.
It will also seek assurances from the two warring sides of their commitment to respect agreements and protocols already reached during eight months of tough negotiations in Arusha in order to provide a conducive atmosphere for the resumption of the peace talks.
Mpungwe said Malecela was due to hold separate private consultations with Nsengiyaremye and Kanyarengwe on Thursday evening in preparation for the two-day meeting.
hb/lto/bm AFP AFP SEQN-0343
