President F\u00e9lix Tshisekedi was initially scheduled to receive representatives of armed groups in Nairobi on Friday, but their representatives failed to show up due to \u201clogistical challenges\u201d.
\nSome sources said the rebel groups could not travel to Kenya on time, despite Nairobi having made plans to facilitate their travel.
\nMr Tshisekedi was subsequently expected to leave Nairobi late on Friday to return to Kinshasa, ending any prospect of him directly engaging the groups.
\nOfficials now say the talks could be held between the armed groups and a special taskforce appointed by President Tshisekedi.
\nConsultations will, however, continue in Nairobi, overseen by Kenya\u2019s President Uhuru Kenyatta.
\nTina Salama, the deputy spokeswoman for the Congolese president, said the government was not abandoning talks but it would now delegate the discussions to a team under the President.
\n\u201cThe president (Felix Tshisekedi) is not receiving representatives of the armed groups on Friday in Nairobi. A Congolese team will remain on site under the leadership of President Uhuru Kenyatta to bring the process to a successful conclusion,\u201d she said, adding that the \u201clogistical problems\u201d were the cause of the meeting flopping.
\nFor the second time in less than two weeks, several heads of state of the East African Community (EAC) met in Nairobi on April 21 to discuss security in the Great Lakes region.
\nTshisekedi, Kenyatta, Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni and Burundi\u2019s Head of State Evariste Ndayishimiye were present at the April 21 meeting. Rwanda\u2019s Paul Kagame, who attended the previous meeting, was represented by his Foreign Minister Vincent Biruta.
\nDR Congo recently joined the EAC as its seventh member, and the leaders of the bloc want to help it regain peace in its borders to ensure regional security.
\nThe leaders chose negotiation first, urging the armed groups to accept the peace talks and lay down their arms, failing which the EAC will resort to deploying bloc’s military in the troubled eastern DRC.<\/p>\n
Patrick Ilunga<\/p>\n
Kinshasa<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
President F\u00e9lix Tshisekedi was initially scheduled to receive representatives of armed groups in Nairobi on Friday, but their representatives failed to show up due to \u201clogistical challenges\u201d. Some sources said the rebel groups could not travel to Kenya on time, despite Nairobi having made plans to facilitate their travel. Mr Tshisekedi was subsequently expected to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":16708,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"source_name":"","source_url":"","via_name":"","via_url":"","override_template":"0","override":[{"template":"1","single_blog_custom":"","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_share_counter":"1","show_view_counter":"1","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_category":"1","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_prev_next_post":"1","show_popup_post":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_author_box":"0","show_post_related":"0","show_inline_post_related":"0"}],"override_image_size":"0","image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post":"0","trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post":"0","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","sponsored_post_name":"","sponsored_post_url":"","sponsored_post_logo_enable":"0","sponsored_post_logo":"","sponsored_post_desc":"","disable_ad":"0"},"jnews_primary_category":{"id":""},"jnews_social_meta":{"fb_title":"","fb_description":"","fb_image":"","twitter_title":"","twitter_description":"","twitter_image":""},"jnews_review":[],"enable_review":"0","type":"percentage","name":"","summary":"","brand":"","sku":"","good":[{"good_text":""}],"bad":[{"bad_text":""}],"score_override":"","override_value":"","rating":[{"rating_text":"","rating_number":"10"}],"price":[{"shop":"","price":"","link":"","icon":""}],"jnews_override_counter":{"override_view_counter":"0","view_counter_number":"0","override_share_counter":"0","share_counter_number":"0","override_like_counter":"0","like_counter_number":"0","override_dislike_counter":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"jnews_post_split":{"enable_post_split":"0","post_split":[{"template":"1","tag":"h2","numbering":"asc","mode":"normal","first":"0","enable_toc":"0","toc_type":"normal"}]},"footnotes":""},"categories":[5314],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16707","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kivuavenir.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16707","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kivuavenir.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kivuavenir.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kivuavenir.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kivuavenir.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16707"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/kivuavenir.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16707\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16709,"href":"https:\/\/kivuavenir.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16707\/revisions\/16709"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kivuavenir.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16708"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kivuavenir.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16707"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kivuavenir.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16707"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kivuavenir.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16707"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}