"I am coming in order to personally involve myself in the search for a solution," Kabila told Reuters before flying from Kinshasa to Goma, the capital of Democratic Republic of Congo's violence-torn eastern North Kivu province.

Renegade General Laurent Nkunda, whose Tutsi rebels have been involved in the fighting the Goma conference is trying to end, said he would also be willing to attend and meet Kabila face-to-face if he was directly invited.

"If I am invited, I'll go. I haven't received a personal invitation," he told Reuters, speaking by telephone from his mountain stronghold in eastern Congo.

"A meeting with the head of state would be a good thing ... When people talk to each other from a distance, they distrust each other. When they talk up close they tell each other things," he added.

The statements were the most encouraging signs yet that the Goma conference, which opened more than a week ago but has been plagued by delays and threatened boycotts, could make some progress towards ending the fighting in eastern Congo.

Congo's broader 1998-2003 war officially ended with a national peace settlement, but government soldiers, Nkunda's Tutsi insurgents, local Mai Mai militia, and Rwandan Hutu rebels have continued to fight each other in North Kivu.

TURBULENT EAST

Kabila, who has vowed to pacify Congo's turbulent east after winning elections last year in the former Belgian colony, called the Goma peace conference after a government military offensive against Nkunda's fighters crumbled last month.

Delegates representing the insurgent general at the Goma meeting also welcomed Kabila's presence.

"We think Kabila's participation will give new impetus to the talks, a new vision. His participation is absolutely necessary," said Kambasu Ngeve, the head of Nkunda's delegation at the conference.

Nkunda's representatives had called on Sunday for direct negotiations with the government and for the return of all Congolese living in exile abroad, including Kabila's arch-rival and defeated presidential contender Jean-Pierre Bemba.

The new head of the United Nations peacekeeping mission in Congo, Alan Doss, also flew to Goma on Tuesday, along with other senior U.N. officials and military commanders. The U.N. maintains around 17,000 peacekeepers in Congo.

Nkunda led around 4,000 fighters into the bush in a 2004 revolt and says his insurgency is trying to protect eastern Congo's Tutsi minority ethnic group against attacks from Rwandan Hutu rebels who also operate in the east.

The U.N., the United States and other western governments have been pressing Kabila, Nkunda and neighbouring states to work together to negotiate a lasting peace in eastern Congo.

Thousands of Congolese Tutsis live in neighbouring Rwanda, Uganda, and Burundi after fleeing during the 1998-2003 war and humanitarian catastrophe that killed an estimated 4 million people, mainly through conflict-related hunger and disease.

Kabila's government signed an agreement with Rwanda in November promising to drive out of eastern Congo Rwandan Hutu rebels who are traditional enemies of Nkunda's Tutsis. The Hutu rebels were involved in the 1994 genocide in Rwanda when some 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus were slaughtered.