Kagame, Tshisekedi in Washington ahead of peace deal signing

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President Paul Kagame and Felix Tshisekedi of the Democratic Republic of Congo are in Washington, DC, where they are expected to meet US President Donald Trump.

Their separate delegations arrived in the US on Wednesday evening.

According to media reports from Kigali, the visit comes as Kagame, Tshisekedi, and host President Trump are due to sign a peace and economic agreement on Thursday, months after an earlier US-brokered deal failed to stop violence.

The US-brokered accord promises to lay the foundation for peace and regional economic integration.

Parade to receive Rwanda's President Paul Kagame as he arrives in Washington, DC., where he is expected to meet with President Donald Trump. (Courtesy)

Thursday’s summit builds on months of American and Qatari mediation and follows a sequence of agreements that have struggled to hold on the ground as hostilities have continued amid talks.

In June, Trump hosted foreign ministers of both countries at the White House as they signed an earlier deal, and has since boasted that DR Congo is one of several countries where he has ended war.

But violence has continued, with both sides blaming each other. It was not immediately clear how different the presidential-level agreement will be from the June deal.

Another peace pact was signed in Doha in November between the Congolese government and the AFC/M23 in Doha.

But violence has continued, with both sides blaming each other. It was not immediately clear how different the presidential-level agreement will be from the June deal.  

Rwandan President Paul Kagame last week publicly accused the Congolese government of delaying the signing of a peace deal.

DRC's Kivu region, rich in minerals vital to new technologies, has endured three decades of armed conflict, costing hundreds of thousands of lives.

Trump has voiced hope for securing minerals from the eastern DRC, giving a boost to the United States over China.

Violence intensified in January when the M23 armed group captured swathes of territory, including the cities of Goma and Bukavu.

Whereas DRC accused Rwanda of backing M23, the Kigali government of supporting the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), an ethnic Hutu group with links to the 1994 genocide in Rwanda.

In talks last month in Washington, Rwanda and the DRC "recognized lagging progress" in implementation of the June agreement but agreed to work on easing tensions.