Starting Great Lakes mission, Security Council team holds talks in Pretoria

A delegation of the United Nations Security Council today held a series of meetings in Pretoria, South Africa, the first step on its eight-nation mission to the continent aimed at shoring up support for peace initiatives in the Great Lakes region.

This morning, the Council mission met with South Africa’s Deputy-President, Jacob Zuma, in the presence of the Foreign Minister of Gabon, Jean Ping. The delegation, which is led by Ambassador Jean-David Levitte of France, then met with Burundi rebel groups.

Ambassador Levitte said the Council strongly supported the facilitation on the crisis in Burundi and urged the rebel groups to cease hostilities immediately. According to a UN spokesman, the French Ambassador stressed the need for a ceasefire now, warning that time was of the essence and tomorrow could be too late.

After arriving in Pretoria on Sunday afternoon, team members held closed-door meetings with Ambassador Mahmoud Kassem, Chairman of the Panel of Experts on the Illegal Exploitation of Natural Resources and other forms of Wealth in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). The meeting was followed by a working dinner with five representatives of the Congolese Rally for Democracy (RCD) and five representatives of the Unarmed Opposition.

Ambassador Levitte welcomed the significant progress made in the inter-Congolese dialogue, which ended on 19 April in Sun City, South Africa, the UN spokesman said. The Council mission also encouraged all those that had declined to be party to this agreement to be flexible and to continue negotiations with a view to consolidating the political process that had just been launched.