Before the proposed Luanda meeting of President Paul Kagame and his counterparts Felix Tshisekedi of DR Congo and João Lourenço of Angola was postponed on Sunday, December 15, their foreign ministers had faced a deadlock during negotiations on Saturday in the Angolan capital.

The seventh ministerial meeting on Saturday was meant review a draft agreement that would be signed by the Presidents on Sunday, but they hit an impasse after Congolese foreign minister Therese Kayikwamba Wagner surprised her counterparts Olivier Nduhungirehe of Rwanda and Tete Antonio of Angola when she refused to approve of a proposal on direct dialogue between her government and the M23 rebels.

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The proposed dialogue with the rebels in eastern DR Congo had been a sticking issue during various exchanges ahead of the December 15 summit of Heads of State.

But the Angolan Minister informed the Rwandan government on November 30 that the Congolese government had "given its agreement to dialogue with the M23 within the framework of the Nairobi Process,” according to Minister Nduhungirehe.

"When we met [on Saturday] as Ministers of Foreign Affairs to review this draft agreement that would be signed by Heads of State, we were surprised to hear that the Minister of [DR Congo] was rejecting that very word (dialogue) for several hours,” Nduhungirehe said in an interview with the national broadcaster RBA on Sunday.

"Actually, we didn’t have many issues of disagreement. We had mainly that one, which was that, to solve the conflict in eastern DRC and also to normalize the relations between Rwanda and Congo, the Congolese government needs to engage in direct talks with that movement, addressing the root causes of the conflict in order to achieve a final solution to the crisis.”

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In a statement released on Sunday after the postponement of the Luanda summit, the Congolese presidency said the issue of dialogue with M23 rebels was raised by Rwanda on Saturday as a "last-minute condition” which "constitutes a deliberate blockage and a major obstacle” to the success of the Luanda process.

Responding to this accusation, Nduhungirehe said that Congolese presidency chose to "lie to the world,” even as the issue had been agreed upon 15 days before the summit of the Presidents.

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The Rwandan Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation said on Sunday that DR Congo was playing "games” around the problem.

The Congolese government accuses Rwanda of supporting the M23 rebels, allegations Rwanda dismisses, saying the crisis results from internal governance failures and long-standing security issues such as the presence of the FDLR, a militia founded by remnants of the perpetrators of the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi.

The ministerial meetings held in Luanda seeking to find a solution to the crisis in eastern DR Congo had three major items to consider. There was the lifting of Rwanda’s defensive measures put in place in response to the security threat from DR Congo, the FDLR neutralization and the solution to the M23 rebellion.

The issue of Rwanda’s defensive measures and the FDLR neutralization had been addressed in the concept of operations signed by the Ministers on November 25 and the M23 rebellion was the one whose way forward had yet to be agreed upon.

However, despite the progress made in the Luanda negotiations, the situation on the ground in eastern DR Congo may be lagging behind, according to Nduhungirehe.

He said that between November 25 and December 14, there was "increased militarisation on the border, new soldiers were deployed and weapons, continued collaboration between high-level officials in the Congolese army and FDLR,” in addition to the activities of the government coalition, which includes the Wazalendo militia, European mercenaries, Burundian forces and troops from the Southern African Development Community (SADC).

Added to these issues is the spread of a genocide ideology and the "obsession by the President of the DRC with regime change as he repeated it on November 17 in Katanga where he told military and civilian leaders of that province that if he’s given the opportunity to revise the constitution he will overthrow the Government of Rwanda,” Nduhungirehe said.

"We take it very seriously because it’s not the first time that he says that. It has been two years... This is why we have defensive measures that are effective to protect our country and our people,” Nduhungirehe noted.

What’s next after Luanda summit is postponed?

The Luanda summit of Heads of State was postponed without a future date. The Angolan Presidency said that Lourenço would have consultations with Tshisekedi and former President of Kenya Uhuru Kenyatta, the facilitator of the Nairobi Process to chart the way forward for the Luanda process.

"What we support is that the consultations go on so that the facilitators come up with a language that could lead to direct talks between government of the DRC and the M23. Then we would be invited to a summit with a new language so that we can sign the agreement that would have been signed [on Sunday],” Nduhungirehe said.

He reiterated that Rwanda wanted peace in the region, despite the belligerent language and "a lack of goodwill” from DR Congo.

The M23 resurfaced in late 2021, nearly a decade in hibernation after its defeat in 2023. The armed group says it fights to protect the civilian population threatened by other armed groups such as the FDLR and its allied militias as well as for the Congolese government to implement previous agreements, which sought to integrate the rebels into the army.