Congolese rebel leader Laurent Nkunda agreed on Sunday to support a United Nations peace process for eastern Congo, including respecting a ceasefire and creating a humanitarian corridor to aid refugees. After talks with a special U.N. envoy, former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, at Jomba in Democratic Republic of Congo’s North Kivu province, Nkunda said he had agreed to three requests from him — to respect a ceasefire, open a humanitarian corridor and support the U.N. peace initiative.

“We agree,“ Nkunda said in French, but he had asked Obasanjo to tell President Joseph Kabila’s government to also respect a suspension of military hostilities.

“We support his mission … he has got support from the international community … we are behind him and we are going to do our part so we can get on with this peace,“ the rebel leader, wearing a grey suit, told reporters earlier in English.

Obasanjo met Nkunda at his home village in the foothills of the Virunga mountains, close to the Rwanda and Uganda borders. As they met, fresh fighting flared between rebel and government forces to the northwest of Jomba in North Kivu province.

Obasanjo, who held talks on Saturday with Congolese President Joseph Kabila, is seeking to prevent the fighting in North Kivu from escalating into a repeat of a wider 1998-2003 Congo war that sucked in six neighbouring states.

The U.N. envoy, who flew back to the North Kivu provincial capital Goma, said the talks with Nkunda went “extremely well“.

“Nkunda wants to maintain a ceasefire but it’s like dancing the tango. You can’t do it alone,“ Obasanjo said. He and Nkunda, who carried a cane topped with an eagle head, danced with rebels and children outside the Jomba church compound where they met.

Weeks of combat between Nkunda’s Tutsi rebels and government troops and their militia allies have displaced around a quarter of a million civilians, creating what aid agencies call a “catastrophic“ humanitarian situation in east Congo.

Earlier, U.N. peacekeepers reported heavy artillery, rocket and small arms fire near the village of Ndeko, about 110 km (70 miles) north of Goma, the capital of North Kivu province.

Nkunda played down the latest clash, saying it was “not a problem“ and he had contacted the government to try to end it.

A U.N. military spokesman, Lt-Col Jean-Paul Dietrich, told Reuters: “It is difficult to say who started it but we can confirm it was between the CNDP and the army. We treated six army soldiers who were wounded and need to be evacuated“.

ETHNIC ENEMIES

The roots of the North Kivu conflict stem from Rwanda’s 1994 genocide, when extremist Hutu militias killed about 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus before fleeing into Congo.

That led to two wars and a humanitarian crisis that killed more than five million people, mostly from hunger and disease.

In 2004, Nkunda rejected peace deals that ended the last war. He accuses Kabila of arming and using a Rwandan Hutu rebel group, the FDLR, which includes perpetrators of the 1994 genocide, to fight with the weak and chaotic Congolese army.

For his part, the Congolese president accuses neighbouring Rwanda, whose soldiers fought in Congo’s last war, ostensibly to hunt down the Hutu militia, of supporting Nkunda’s rebellion.

Nkunda spokesman Bertrand Bisimwa blamed government forces for the latest fighting on Sunday. “The army attacked us this morning and, as we warned, we have decided to push them back until we no longer consider them a threat.“

But he said this would not derail the peace talks. “He (Obasanjo) is not blind. He will see who is responsible for the clashes. While he talks peace, the government attacks us.“

The Congolese army was not available for comment.

Nkunda initially took up arms saying he was fighting to defend fellow Tutsis in Congo from attack by the Rwandan Hutu FDLR. But, after marching to the gates of Goma last month, he is now calling for direct negotiations with the president.

Kabila has so far rejected talks.

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