UN talk up Burundi peace

The UN is encouraging President Buyoya to keep on talking

The United Nations is trying to revive the faltering peace process in Burundi to end the country's eight year civil war.

A 12 member UN delegation is currently on a tour of Africa's Great Lakes region aiming to help solve the area's entangled conflicts.

On Wednesday they are meeting Burundian President Pierre Buyoya as well as the other signatories to the country's peace accord.

But the BBC correspondent in Burundi say the meeting comes at a time when the various parties appear to be backing away from any agreement.

The mediator in the Burundi talks Nelson Mandela managed to get a peace deal signed in Arusha in August last year.

Two of the main Hutu rebel groups, however, refused to put their names to it and lay down their arms.

More conflict

In recent months fighting has intensified and the leader of the UN delegation, Jean-David Levitte, said the escalation is his greatest concern.

One of the rebel groups, the Forces for the Defence of Democracy (FDD), did say to the UN that they would talk to President Buyoya once an agenda for discussions had been agreed.

Our correspondent says that there are problems even amongst those who signed up to the peace agreement.

The Arusha accord called for the immediate establishment of a transitional government. Now some of the parties are saying that there must be a ceasefire first.

There are reports that 4,000 Burundian rebels returned to the country from the Democratic Republic of the Congo in recent months.

They have been supported by the DR Congo government, which is involved in a conflict with Congolese rebels.

The UN delegation is anxious that a peace deal in the DR Congo is not jeopardised by the continuing conflict in Burundi.