The top diplomat of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DR Congo) on Monday lauded the recent decision by dissident Tutsi rebels to stop hostilities, saying it marked a "significant advance" toward peace and stability.

Foreign Minister Alexis Thambwe Mwamba said the government's objective is to put an end to the suffering of the people and war in order to restore peace in North Kivu and South Kivu provinces.

Mwamba also announced that President Joseph Kabila would receive UN special envoy Olusegun Obasanjo within hours to be briefed on the development in the latest round of Nairobi talks.

The former Nigerian president chair the negotiations between Kinshasa and the rebel National Council for the Defense of the People (CNDP) led by renegade Tutsi general Laurent Nkunda.

Three rounds of talks have been held in the Kenyan capital since early December, without an agreement.

Nkunda is currently conditioning a deal on the pullback of the government army from a buffer zone his men had vacated for UN humanitarian aid to refugees. But the government and the UN peace mission in the vast central African country have repeatedly denied the presence.

It is not clear whether Nkunda's men would sign a joint cessation of hostilities with the government officials during their next round of talks late in the month.

CNDP chief of staff Bosco Ntaganda headed his generals in a breakaway with Nkunda by signing a peace deal with the government on Friday in Goma, the capital of North Kivu.

The progress is applauded by the top UN official in DR Congo, Alan Doss. "If this accord brings a genuine cessation of hostilities between the Congolese parties, it would be a truly significant advance toward peace," he said on Monday.

Conflicts between the government forces and the CNDP have displaced an estimated 250,000 people since last August on top of the 800,000 already rendered homeless in the region, mainly in North Kivu Province which borders Rwanda and Uganda.

(Xinhua News Agency January 20, 2009)