DRC-Rwanda JSCM Talks Open in Geneva for Second Day Amid Renewed Eastern DRC Fighting

DRC and Rwandan delegations reconvened in Geneva on Sept 16 for the seventh Joint Security Coordination Mechanism (JSCM) meeting under the Washington Accords, running through Sept 17 with mediators from the US, Qatar, Togo and the African Union Commission. The session follows the Aug 12-13 sixth JSCM meeting, at which the two sides agreed to advance two monitoring and verification initiatives now awaiting US feedback, and is meant to feed into an October trilateral planning conference. FDLR neutralization remains the central unresolved obligation: the DRC's July 28 disarmament protocol with an FDLR faction has drawn Rwandan rejection, with Kigali insisting on neutralization rather than negotiated disarmament and conditioning its own defensive-posture rollback on the group's dismantlement. The talks opened as fighting continued in North Kivu's Masisi and Walikale territories and South Kivu's Fizi highlands, underscoring the gap between the diplomatic track and conditions on the ground.