DR Congo says Rwanda flouting pact

MOSCOW:

The Democratic Republic of Congo's foreign minister told AFP Thursday that US sanctions on Rwanda were justified as Kigali had failed to withdraw its troops from Kinshasa's territory as pledged.

Therese Kayikwamba Wagner said DR Congo had made progress in its promise, made under the same US-brokered deal with Rwanda, to neutralise a militia that Kigali says is a cross-border threat.

"We think it's very important to have sanctions. First of all, the sanctions establish the truth! Rwanda signed the Washington agreement and has been consistently violating them," she said.

"Rwanda has fallen short of its main commitment under Washington agreement to withdraw troops that are illegally in the Democratic Republic of Congo and the consequences are being felt," she told AFP in an interview.

"The fact that there are sanctions establishes the fact that there have been violations." In December, DR Congo and Rwanda endorsed a Washington-brokered peace agreement but it did not end the fighting.

Kinshasa is seeking the withdrawal of Rwandan forces from its territory.

Kigali makes this conditional on the neutralisation of the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), an armed group founded by former Rwandan Hutu officials responsible for the 1994 genocide of the Tutsi, and active in eastern DRC.

The United States on Wednesday imposed sanctions on the Rwandan defence ministry and a financial institution in the central African country over their alleged ties to the M23 armed group fighting in DR Congo