The African Union Commissioner for Peace and Security to visit the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda

ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia, January 3, 2013/African Press Organization (APO)/ -- The African Union (AU) Commissioner for Peace and Security, Ambassador Ramtane Lamamra, will travel to Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), and Kigali, Rwanda, from 2 to 3 and 4 to 5 January 2013, respectively. In both countries, he will meet high-level officials to discuss the situation in the Great Lakes and efforts to foster peace, security and stability in the Region. While in the DRC, the Commissioner will also visit Goma. In Kigali, discussions will also include an exchange of views on how best Rwanda can help in furthering the AU peace and security agenda in its capacity as a new non-permanent member of the United Nations Security Council.

Commissioner Lamamra's mission will precede the visit that the Chairperson of the Commission, Dr. Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma, intends to undertake to the Region, as part of AU's efforts to address the crisis in the eastern part of the DRC and in support of the initiatives of the International Conference on the Great Lakes Region (ICGLR). In this respect, the AU Commission will convene, in Addis Ababa, on 8 January 2013, a ministerial-level meeting on the deployment of the envisaged Neutral International Force (NIF) in the eastern part of the DRC and the enhancement of the Expanded Joint Verification Mechanism (EJVM), as a follow-up to the consultation on the same subject that took place, at the AU Headquarters, on 27 and 28 December 2012.