US-DRC-Rwanda Peace Deal—A Beginning, Not an End: Congo War Security Review Special Edition

To receive the weekly Africa File or tri-weekly Congo War Security Review via email, please subscribe here. Follow CTP on X, LinkedIn, and BlueSky.

Key Takeaway: The United States brokered a peace agreement between the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and Rwanda that will likely limit the scale of violence in the eastern DRC in the short to medium term. Key points surrounding the withdrawal of Rwandan troops and addressing anti-Tutsi militias will face challenges, however. The long-term success of the agreement will likely be contingent on a still-unfinished comprehensive peace framework that includes Rwandan-backed M23 and other key actors in the eastern DRC.

Assessment:

The United States brokered a peace agreement between the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and Rwanda that will likely limit the scale of violence in the eastern DRC. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio hosted DRC Foreign Minister Thérèse Wagner and Rwandan Foreign Minister Olivier Nduhungirehe to sign the agreement in Washington, DC, on June 27.[i] The peace agreement builds on efforts by the United States and Qatar in the last several months. Qatar brokered a ceasefire between the DRC and Rwanda in mid-March 2025 that laid the groundwork for dialogue before the United States took lead.[ii] The DRC and Rwanda have worked to finalize the text of the US-brokered agreement since the two sides signed a declaration of principles agreement under US mediation in late April.[iii] A heads of state signing ceremony with US President Donald Trump, DRC President Félix Tshisekedi, and Rwandan President Paul Kagame is tentatively scheduled for July in Washington, DC.[iv]

The agreement will likely limit the scale of violence in the eastern DRC in the short to medium term. The Qatari-brokered ceasefire led to a decrease in direct fighting between the Congolese army (FARDC) and Rwandan army (RDF) troops in the eastern DRC. Armed Conflict Location and Event Data (ACLED) reported in early April that RDF troops deployed in the eastern DRC had ceased direct operations after the ceasefire and that the FARDC’s involvement in engagements in North and South Kivu provinces in the eastern DRC declined to 20 percent of all clashes.[v] ACLED data showed that this trend continued from April through mid-June as the United States took the lead in DRC-Rwanda negotiations.[vi] The two sides recommitted to a “prohibition of hostiles” under the US-led agreement.[vii]

The peace deal includes a regional economic framework that aims to spur economic growth and facilitate US and regional investment in the DRC and Rwanda. The economic aspects of the deal focus on US investment in the upstream and midstream aspects of each country’s critical mineral supply chains.[viii] The French investigative outlet Africa Intelligence reported in late May that Tshisekedi offered the United States a mineral deal worth $3 trillion.[ix] The agreement also includes US investment and cooperation between the three countries in sectors such as tourism and hydroelectric power in the region.[x]

The security aspects of the agreement include a plan for the DRC to dismantle an extremist rebel group in exchange for the withdrawal of Rwandan forces from the eastern DRC. Rwanda has deployed between 4,000 and 12,000 troops and provided material support to back M23 rebels in the eastern DRC, in part to combat the Forces démocratiques de libération du Rwanda (FDLR).[xi] The FDLR is an ethnic Hutu armed group with ties to the 1994 Rwandan genocide and targeted hate speech against Rwandaphone communities in the eastern DRC that the Rwandan government views as a national security threat.[xii] The DRC has had ties to the FDLR since the early 2000s as a proxy force to counter Rwanda and Rwandan-backed rebels operating in the eastern DRC.[xiii] Rwanda has accused the Congolese government of using the FDLR as a proxy to destabilize or overthrow the Rwandan government.[xiv] Rwanda and M23 have conducted a counterinsurgency and arrest campaign in the eastern DRC to root out and repatriate suspected FDLR militants and their families since May 2025.[xv]

The US-backed peace agreement would see RDF troops withdraw after the FARDC “neutralizes” the FDLR.[xvi] The plan is in line with a previous, Angolan-mediated concept of operations (CONOP) and verification mechanism, which the two sides never put into action after peace talks collapsed in late 2024.[xvii] The CONOP is centered on commitments from the DRC to launch an offensive to dismantle the FDLR and ensure the repatriation of the group to Rwanda and other displaced persons to their “places of origin.”[xviii] The US agreement requires the DRC to “prohibit and intercept any material or financial support, national or foreign” for the FDLR.[xix] Rwanda agreed to “disengage its forces” and reintegrate ex-FDLR fighters into Rwanda in exchange for the DRC’s commitments as part of the CONOP.[xx] The US deal would reportedly allow a limited number of Rwandan forces and “foreign military observer personnel” to deploy to the eastern DRC to accomplish prescribed military objectives.[xxi] The US-led agreement requires the DRC and Rwanda to establish a joint verification mechanism comprised of representatives from the DRC, Rwanda, and the United States within 30 days of the signed agreement to monitor implementation of the CONOP.[xxii]

The dual-sided plan has unclear benchmarks and a compressed timeline, which could create obstacles to its successful execution. The CONOP from late 2024 contained a four-stage plan to occur across three months. First, military officials would conduct a threat analysis of the FDLR’s current area of operations, fighting capability, and known affiliate groups.[xxiii] Rwanda is required to cease “ad hoc cross-border operations” and provide information on the scaling back of its defensive posture.[xxiv] Second, the FARDC will attack the FDLR and its “auxiliaries,” and Rwanda will undertake the “lifting of its defensive measures.”[xxv] Both military actions in the second phase have no reported timeline according to French media.[xxvi] Third, the DRC and Rwanda will conduct a general review of the plan’s execution and jointly assess its outcome.[xxvii] Finally, the DRC and Rwanda will work to repatriate and reintegrate demobilized FDLR fighters to Rwanda.[xxviii]

The lack of clarity concerning the timing and measures of success in the first and second phases risks sparking disagreements between the stakeholders. Senior Rwandan officials have said repeatedly that Rwanda will not withdraw its troops from the eastern DRC until after the FARDC degrades the FDLR—not before or in parallel with anti-FDLR operations.[xxix] French media reported in late 2024 that there are no predefined benchmarks for the phases and that Rwanda will not fulfill its obligations to reduce its military presence until Kigali judges that the FARDC’s action against the FDLR has reached a “satisfactory” level.[xxx] Reuters quoted a Rwandan government spokesperson and “three sources” close to the US-led discussions who said that the agreement would see Rwandan forces withdraw from the eastern DRC “over several months” and that Rwanda’s withdrawal is conditional on the success of FARDC operations against the FDLR.[xxxi]

The long-term success of the US-brokered agreement to bring peace to the eastern DRC will likely be contingent on separate and more fragile Qatari-mediated talks between the DRC government and M23. Qatar has been mediating direct peace talks between the DRC and Rwandan-backed M23 since late March. The talks are separate from the US-led initiative between the DRC and Rwanda but are closely coordinated.[xxxii] The DRC and M23 released a joint statement under Qatari mediation in late April and committed jointly to work toward a ceasefire deal with “an immediate cessation of hostilities” for the first time publicly.[xxxiii] Qatar presented a peace proposal to the two camps in early June and reportedly aims to finalize a draft agreement by mid-July.[xxxiv]

The DRC-M23 talks have failed to result in tangible progress, however, likely due to the DRC’s maximalist demands. Several rounds of Qatari-mediated negotiations have failed since late March.[xxxv] The DRC has demanded repeatedly that M23 withdraw unconditionally from occupied areas in the eastern DRC as preconditions to talks.[xxxvi] These demands do not reflect the military reality given that M23 controls two provincial capitals, Goma and Bukavu, has established a parallel administration governing an area half the size of Belgium with the population of Ireland, and has gained domestic support from a range of Congolese opposition groups and militias. M23 has accused the DRC of not making “any significant concessions” in Qatari-led talks, refused to hand over territory, and sent a “lower-level delegation” to the talks in May than it did in April.[xxxvii] The two sides convened for the latest round of talks in mid-June.[xxxviii]

Figure 1. M23 Advances in the Eastern DRC

Source: Yale Ford; Liam Karr

Various local actors in the DRC have been left out of both peace processes to be addressed in a future inter-Congolese dialogue. The Congolese political opposition and civil society leaders across the DRC have increased calls to address long-standing issues in the DRC through an inclusive peace conference, which could reconfigure political power at the national down to the local level. A coalition of Congolese religious leaders has spearheaded a national dialogue effort since the M23 crisis escalated in early 2025.[xxxix] Former Nigerian head of state and peace mediator for the African Union, Olusegun Obasanjo, has met with heads of state—including Tshisekedi and Kagame—and key political actors in the Great Lakes for the last several weeks to discuss peace efforts and “outline the contours” of an inter-Congolese dialogue.[xl]

The proposed dialogue would take inspiration from the Sun City dialogue of 2002 and work toward establishing a transitional government in the DRC.[xli] The dialogue would ostensibly seek to address the grievances of the more than 100 armed groups in the eastern DRC, including pro-Congolese government Wazalendo militia groups who have repeatedly fought M23. The US-led agreement requires the DRC government to allow M23 to take part in a national dialogue “on equal footing with other DRC non-state armed groups.”[xlii] Former DRC President Joseph Kabila and the opposition bloc have said that a national dialogue is a prerequisite to lasting peace.[xliii]

Various stakeholders are currently unwilling to engage in a national dialogue, however. Tshisekedi’s administration has slow-walked the process and criticized the measure as “political subversion” to displace him from power.[xliv] The political opposition has supported the religious leaders’ effort but refused to participate under Tshisekedi’s auspices.[xlv] The peace initiative has largely stalled since mid-May due to Tshisekedi’s unwillingness to move forward with the talks. Tshisekedi met with the religious leaders in late June and committed to explore the initiative but remained skeptical, criticizing them for meeting with M23 in early 2025 and reportedly demanded the initiative exclude M23, Kabila and his allies.[xlvi]

The lack of a comprehensive agreement involving M23 and other key actors increases the risk that unaddressed issues undermine existing peace deals. The DRC has repeatedly failed to honor previous peace arrangements with M23 that mirror its current obligations in favor of a military solution. Kabila initially agreed to a peace deal with the former iteration of M23 in 2013 but never implemented it. The current iteration of M23 arose when the DRC again refused to implement the agreement after negotiations stalled in November 2021.[xlvii] The US-led agreement requires the DRC to address similar underlying disagreements and facilitate M23’s “disengagement, disarmament, conditional integration” into the FARDC and transition to a political party.[xlviii]

These objectives cannot be achieved without coordinated efforts to address M23 demands given the group has secured a strong grip on the eastern DRC. M23 has absorbed at least 5,000 Congolese army soldiers, militia fighters, and local police since February 2025 and taken steps to decrease its reliance on Rwanda.[xlix] M23 has instituted its own leadership structures and expanded its well-organized parallel administration to provide basic services, establish an alternative financial system, secure and police large population centers, adjudicate social and legal matters, and facilitate transportation and trade in the eastern DRC, among other measures.[l] Corneille Nangaa, the head of M23’s political branch, told The Associated Press in March that he opposed the US-led deal and that anything “done without us, [is] against us.”[li]

Military conflict in the eastern DRC will almost certainly continue in the absence of an internal peace arrangement that involves an array of actors—not just M23. Wazalendo fighters have denounced their exclusion from the Qatari-mediated talks and said they would keep fighting regardless of their outcome.[lii] M23 has cracked down on suspected Wazalendo sympathizers in population centers and launched several offensives in North Kivu and South Kivu to clear Wazalendo from key roads since mid-April.[liii] Kabila and the Congolese opposition have labeled the US- and Qatar-led peace processes as exclusionary and insufficient as a “basis for a definitive and lasting solution” to the internal political and security crises in the DRC.[liv] Their exclusion will cause continued political instability and undermine the opposition’s adherence to the deals should they ever take power.

Data Cutoff: June 27, 2025, at 1:30 p.m. ET

The Congo War Security Review is a tri-weekly review of activity related to the war in the eastern DRC between M23 and its Rwandan backers and pro-Congolese government forces, published every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.