UN to restore military cooperation in DR Congo

United Nations (United States) (AFP) - The United Nations will soon restore military cooperation with the Democratic Republic of Congo to help the army fight rebels in the east, a senior UN official said Wednesday.

The UN peacekeeping mission in the DR Congo withdrew its support to the army's campaign in February 2015 to protest the appointment of two generals to lead the offensive who are on a UN list of human rights violators.

"We will be in the next few days in a position to resume all the support we give to the FARDC," the Congolese army, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Priority will be given to the army's campaign against two rebel groups, the Ugandan ADF rebels and fighters from the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), an ethnic Hutu militia based in the east for more than two decades.

The United Nations last year had announced plans to root out the FDLR but these went awry as differences emerged between the 20,000-strong MONUSCO force and Kinshasa.

The return of UN military backing to the Congolese army was agreed during UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's visit to Kinshasa last week.

UN officials are pushing for the disarming of dozens of rebel and splinter groups after two decades of conflict in the eastern DR Congo, much of it fueled by the lucrative trade in minerals.