Security Council mission to DR Congo

The United Nations Security Council says it will send a delegation to the Democratic Republic of Congo to discuss concrete ways to enforce the Lusaka peace accord.

The current president of the Security Council, Robert Fowler, said arrangements for the visit, and details of which Security Council members would go, were being discussed.

Diplomats at the UN said the visit was likely to take place in early May.

The delegation will travel to Kinshasa to meet President Laurent Kabila, then on to Zambia for talks with other heads of state involved in the conflict. The announcement came after the weekend signing in Kampala of a new ceasefire by all parties involved in the two-year conflict in the former Zaire.

The UN is planning to deploy an observer force numbering five-and-a-half-thousand to monitor the ceasefire.

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service