Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni and his Rwandan counterpart Paul Kagame have agreed to continue dialogue in a bid to find a lasting solution to whatever differences exist between their countries.
According to a Uganda state house statement, the meeting between the two presidents happened on the sidelines of a quadripartite summit over the weekend in Luanda, Angola, attended by host President, Joao Manuel Lourenco and DR Congo leader Felix Tshisekedi.
In a brief opening address before the leaders went into a closed-door session, President Lourenco said the summit was a follow-up to a tripartite one held on May 31st in Kinshasa, among DR Congo, Rwanda and Angola.
“That summit was about security issues particularly on the borders of the three countries. We then agreed that another meeting be held in Luanda, Angola and also agreed to invite President Museveni to join the summit,” said President Lourenco.
He added that whereas the original agenda was to discuss the security issues on the borders of the three countries, it had been expanded to include relations between Uganda and Rwanda.
Later, at the end of the summit, in a communiqué read by Angola’s External Affairs Minister, Manuel Domingos, it was indicated that “As far as relations between Rwanda and Uganda are concerned, the summit welcomed the willingness of the two parties to continue dialogue with a view to finding a solution to the existing problem.”
The heads of state also announced that Angola with the support of the DR Congo had been assigned the task of facilitating this process.
This comes on the heels of continued closure of the Uganda Rwanda border at border closure.
The Uganda- Rwanda border post at Gatuna which has been closed since 27thFebruary this year was between 10th June to 22nd June 2019 temporarily opened on to enable Rwanda assess the operationalization of the constructed works and equipment at the Rwandan side of the One Stop Border Post (OSBP).
Initially, Rwanda claimed it had closed the borders to work on the One-stop border post.
However, during the same time, Rwanda advised its citizens against traveling to Uganda claiming that Ugandan authorities were abducting, arbitrarily arresting, jailing, torturing and illegally deporting Rwandans.
Uganda was also accused of hosting, sponsoring, and facilitating terrorist groups – more specifically Rwanda National Congress- RNC and The Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda FDLR – that have declared war on Rwanda.
Gatuna-Katuna border post has historically been the major crossing point for cargo trucks and cross border trade, both formal and informal, heading to Rwanda, Burundi and Democratic Republic of Congo.
CN/as/APA