VOA标准英语10月-Senior US Diplomat Travels to Africa for Talks on

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U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Jendayi Frazer at a meeting with regional heads of state in Nairobi, Kenya to discuss Somalia's crisis, 29 Oct. 2008

The assistant secretary of state, who attended a meeting in Nairobi this week on the situation in Somalia, is due in the DRC capital Thursday, and will either go on to Kigali or hold telephone talks with Rwandan leaders.

Fighting in the eastern DRC, under way on and off for more than a decade, has surged in recent weeks with clashes between a rebel group and the Congolese army, and U.N. peacekeepers caught in the crossfire⁵.

At a news briefing, State Department Spokesman Sean McCormack said Rice dispatched Frazer to Kinshasa after telephone contacts with, among others, Belgian Foreign Minister Karel De Gucht.

He said Frazer, in her discussions with officials of the DRC and Rwanda, will explore ways to defuse regional tensions.

He added, "A lot of these tensions result from various ethnic⁷ groups in those regions, in the Great Lakes region, as well tensions that exist between Rwanda and the DRC. So we are working to try to, as best we can, minimize those tensions, work the political side, support the U.N. in its efforts to get more troops in there and get more capabilities⁸ in there. That's a U.N. process but we support them in doing that."

A State Department statement issued late Tuesday expressed deep U.S. concern about the worsening humanitarian situation in the eastern DRC, and called for all parties to meet commitments to recent cease-fire and renunciation of force agreements.
　

General Laurent Nkunda

It specifically urged the ethnic-Tutsi Congolese rebel group led by renegade general Laurent Nkunda - the CNDP - to avoid further fighting, rescind⁹ its call for open revolt against the DRC, and resume talks with the democratically elected and internationally recognized government in Kinshasa.

The State Department called for the mainly ethnic-Hutu rebel group active in the area - the FDLR - to also lay down its arms, disband and demobilize.

A senior official who spoke⁶ to reporters here said U.S. officials are concerned about reports of outside support for rebels in Congo, from Rwanda among other places.

Tuesday's statement called for all the countries of the Great Lakes region to work together to enhance stability and respect each other's sovereignty.

The senior official said the U.S. Agency for International Development is considering ways to get additional relief aid into the area but that the fighting makes deliveries very difficult.