The South African president, Thabo Mbeki, and his Congolese counterpart, Laurent Kabila, have urged rebels fighting the Kinshasa government to endorse a ceasefire accord agreed earlier this month.

The call came at the beginning of a working visit to South Africa by Mr Kabila and his members of his cabinet to discuss South African assistance in the reconstruction of the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Kinshasa had earlier claimed that more than three-thousand rebels of the Congolese Rally for the Democracy had surrendered in the eastern Katanga province.

The claim was denied by a rebel spokesman Bizima Karaha attending meetings in Tanzania to decide which rebel faction should sign the ceasefire accord agreed in Lusaka.