'No talks with Nkunda outside peace pact'

Kinshasa: Direct peace talks between Congo's government and Tutsi rebel leader Laurent Nkunda are "impossible" unless they take place within the framework of an earlier January peace accord, the government said on Tuesday.

"We agree to negotiate with Nkunda, within the Amani framework," Democratic Republic of Congo's Information Minister Lambert Mende said, referring to a January peace pact signed by Nkunda which he has since repudiated as one-sided.

"No one is going to be negotiating outside the Amani framework," he added. Amani means "peace" in Swahili.

Mende was responding to a call by a United Nations' special envoy, former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, for Congolese President Joseph Kabila to talk to Nkunda.