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ARUSHA, Tanzania, Aug 13 (AFP) - Rwanda's government and rebel Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) edged closer Thursday to a settlement of their conflict as the peace talks entered their fourth day here, sources at the meeting said.
The Tanzanian-mediated current round of negotiations is focused on the prospects for the formation of a broadbased government based on democracy and respect of human rights in the tiny central African country ravaged by 22 months of civil war.
"We have started well ... we are moving closer to agreement", said a senior Tanzanian foreign affairs official Ami Mpungwe who is in his government's delegation to the meeting.
"The two sides' commitment to peace is very clear", said Mpungwe, the director for Africa and the Middle East in the Tanzanian foreign ministry.
The negotiations, which opened in this northern Tanzania town on Tuesday, follow a ceasefire agreement reached July 12.
Both sides have confirmed that the ceasefire which came into effect midnight July 31 was holding.
Discussions have so far covered the RPF's demands for a new constitution, political pluralism, a new parliament and the possible formation of a broadbased transitional government.
The rebels are also demanding the repatriation of people forced to flee the the country and the integration of RPF forces into the national army.
The mainly ethnic Tutsi RPF invaded Rwanda from Uganda in October 1990 in an attempt to overthrow the Hutu-dominated government of President Juvenal Habyarimana.
Tutsis ruled the country until 1959 when they were toppled by the Hutus, forcing them to flee in their thousands to neighbouring Uganda, Tanzania and Zaire.
They now want to return and participate in the government, a demand that Habyarimana's 19-year-old administration has grudgingly conceded to after earlier asserting that there is no room for additional population in the densely populated state of 7.2 million people.
hb/jnm/nb AFP AFP SEQN-0119
