NAIROBI, Jan. 12 (Xinhua) -- The top UN envoy leading peace talks in the war-ravaged eastern region of DRC Olusegun Obasanjo has denied media reports attributed to rebel leader Laurent Nkunda that he concurred with the rebel leader that there will be no ceasefire without the government army's pullback from some front lines.
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's Special Envoy for the Great Lakes Region, Obasanjo, who is tasked with facilitating the talks between the government and the mainly Tutsi rebel militia (CNDP), aimed at ending the on-going conflict, said he did not make such remarks.
"The Special Envoy stresses that he did not express such an opinion carried in a news report from Reuters dated January 9, 2009, and titled 'No Congo ceasefire without army pullback -- Nkunda,'" he said in a statement received here Monday.
In an interview published by Reuters on Friday, renegade general Nkunda was quoted as saying that the Special Envoy stated, "MONUC (the UN peacekeeping mission in DRC) was wrong" to dismiss CNDP allegations of government forces redeploying in UN-monitored buffer zones set up to avoid fresh conflict.
Obasanjo stressed that "he did not express such an opinion." In an earlier press statement last month, he noted that "following investigations, the CNDP's allegations proved to be without foundation. The Special Envoy of the Secretary-General stands by his statement," his spokesperson added.
The Special Envoy also reiterated his full confidence in MONUC and underscored the positive role the mission is playing in the DRC.
Obasanjo is in Nairobi to attend the third session of the Congo peace talks which started last week and were opened on his behalf by the former Tanzanian President Benjamin Mkapa.
The Nairobi talks, between the Government and the rebel National Congress in Defense of the People (CNDP), began last month with the goal of ending the ongoing conflict, which has uprooted an estimated 250,000 people since late August on top of the 800,000 already displaced in the region, mainly in North Kivu province, which borders Rwanda and Uganda.