200809142077 | DRC Rebel leader orders Troop withdraw.

DRC Rebel leader orders Troop withdraw.

Kinshasa - DR Congo's renegade Tutsi leader Laurent Nkunda said on Friday he asked his troops to withdraw from positions taken over from government forces since fighting resumed in the country's east last month.

Nkunda, head of the National Congress for the Defence of the People (CNDP), said he asked his troops "to unilaterally and immediately pull back from all positions taken on all fronts since the resumption of hostilities in the past days".

The announcement was made in a letter from the former government army general to the UN representative in Democratic Republic of Congo, Alan Doss, of which AFP received a copy.

"This pull-back has been ordered to allow aid workers to access our most needy compatriots and to give peace (in the troubled Nord-Kivu region) another chance," he said.

Nkunda also called on MONUC, the United Nations peacekeeping mission in DR Congo, to allow his troops to pass freely to regain their earlier positions, describing the retreat as a "last gesture of good will" and warning that if clashes broke out again, his forces "would respond with the greatest vigour".

UN peacekeepers earlier sent troops to hotspots in the east of the country to handle the fallout of increased fighting there between the rebels and the army.

MONUC, which has 14 000 peacekeepers deployed in the country, moved troops from Sud-Kivu and Ituri towards Nord-Kivu, which borders Uganda and Rwanda, a spokesperson said.

The UN judged the region calm as of early on Friday.

Fighting between government troops, the FARDC, and rebels of the CNDC broke out in Nord-Kivu on August 28, with both sides blaming each other for the violence.

On Thursday international mediators - notably the UN, the African Union, the United States, the European Union - called on Nkunda to "immediately cease" military action in the recently occupied regions and on both sides to return to positions they occupied before August 28.

The fighting, which violates the Goma peace accords signed in January, has continued despite efforts of UN peacekeepers to intervene.