The top diplomats from Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo signed a peace agreement in Washington on Friday to try to end a devastating war in eastern Congo that has resulted in thousands of deaths and displaced hundreds of thousands of people since fighting surged this year.
The State Department under Secretary of State Marco Rubio has shepherded talks between the two countries, and Mr. Rubio welcomed their foreign ministers to a table in the Harry S. Truman Building, the department’s headquarters, where the signing ceremony took place. The three diplomats and the audience applauded after the signing of the documents.
“We are grateful to both of you,” Mr. Rubio said. “I know how hard it was and how much work went into it.”
Rwanda’s foreign minister, Olivier Nduhungirehe, said that the country “stands ready to work with the Democratic Republic of Congo on our joint commitment.”
His counterpart from Congo, Thérèse Kayikwamba Wagner, called the peace agreement “a new chapter.” But she also declared that “deep down, the flesh will still remember.”
The two countries began working on drafts of the accord two months ago, and President Trump has boasted of his administration’s role as mediator, though fighting has continued. Mr. Trump said in late May that Massad Boulos, the State Department’s senior adviser for Africa and the father-in-law of Tiffany Trump, had helped settle the war.
The government of Qatar also helped broker the deal.
“I’m a little out of my league on that one because I didn’t know too much about it,” Mr. Trump said of the conflict between Rwanda and Congo. “I knew one thing: They were going at it for many years with machetes, and it is one of the worst, one of the worst wars anyone’s ever seen.”
Mr. Trump also indicated that the United States would be gaining access to critical minerals in Congo. “They’re so honored to be here,” Mr. Trump said. “This is a very tough part of the world.”
Congo is the world’s top cobalt supplier, and Chinese companies are the biggest miners and buyers.
The main question now is how the peace agreement will be put into effect, and whether both sides, the United States and other nations will enforce it.
A deadly conflict in the Great Lakes region of eastern Congo has been unfolding over three decades, since a genocide and civil war began in Rwanda in 1994. Among other things, the conflict involves people from the two ethnic groups that fought in Rwanda, the Hutus and the Tutsis. Violence has surged and ebbed over the long span, and in recent years Congolese officials have accused Rwanda of giving material aid to a powerful militia, M23, that invaded Congo in 2021.
Rwandan officials said that Hutus living in eastern Congo who had been responsible for the genocide of Tutsis decades ago were still a threat and needed to be dealt with.
On the ground, the war shows no sign of reaching an end.
And while the Trump administration has been praised for taking a lead role in trying to resolve one of the world’s deadliest and longest-running conflicts, the agreement is largely seen as just one piece of what will need to be a much broader effort.
The deal leaves out many of the conflict’s key protagonists. These include M23, but also Uganda and Burundi, which like Rwanda have troops in eastern Congo.
M23 occupies large tracts of the eastern provinces of North and South Kivu, where it is in the process of establishing parallel administrations. An early draft of the Washington-brokered deal, seen by The New York Times, worked on the assumption that separate peace talks between Congo and M23, hosted by Qatar, had already resulted in a deal and M23 giving up power. But this has not yet happened.
“It seems the U.S. deal will largely leave the entire M23 question mostly unaddressed,” said Liam Karr, the Africa team lead at the American Enterprise Institute’s Critical Threats Project. Leaving the issue to the Qatar talks, he added, was “a pretty big risk, because if questions about M23’s control of territory, eventual integration and status as a legal party aren’t addressed, they will continue to fight the D.R.C. government and allied groups.”
Critics also say the agreement shares Congo’s wealth with its invader, with no justice for past crimes and no guarantees against future aggression. “This is sad, because I really believe that the U.S. can do better — they can really help build a lasting peace,” said Dr. Denis Mukwege, an outspoken critic of the agreement and a gynecological surgeon who won the 2018 Nobel Peace Prize for his work with Congo’s many rape survivors.
Edward Wong reports on global affairs, U.S. foreign policy and the State Department for The Times.
Ruth Maclean is the West Africa bureau chief for The Times, covering 25 countries including Nigeria, Congo, the countries in the Sahel region as well as Central Africa.
Zolan Kanno-Youngs is a White House correspondent for The Times, covering President Trump and his administration.
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