Parties involved in the Democratic Republic of Congo peace process met in the South African capital Monday to map out fresh meetings for the next few days, facilitator Sydney Mufamadi said in Pretoria.

Representatives from the DRC government, rebel groups and civil society met for two hours Monday morning and agreed on a programme of action for the latest round of talks aimed at restoring peace in war-ravaged former Zaire.

"They will start work on Tuesday and proceed until March 3 when the mediation team will receive their reports. On March 5, the plenary will be convened to consider and adopt those reports,"
Mufamadi, South Africa's minister of provincial and local government, told AFP.

The meetings are designed to refine the details of a peace deal signed in December last year, which involves the creation of a power-sharing government to lead the former Belgian colony to its first elections in 40 years.

The new phase of negotiations will focus on the outstanding issues of drafting an interim constitution; power-sharing in the government and the allocation of responsibilities in the army; and how to guarantee the security of the country's future leaders, particularly in Kinshasa.

Two committees were Monday established to deal with constitutional matters and security and military affairs.

Representatives from the government, opposition parties, civic groups and two rebel movements -- the Ugandan-backed Congolese Liberation Movement (MLC) and the smaller Rally for Congolese Democracy-Liberation Movement (RCD-ML) -- are attending the latest round of discussions.

War broke out in the DRC in August 1998, and at its height drew in more than half a dozen African countries.

Most of the foreign troops involved on either the government or rebel sides of the conflict withdrew last year.

But their withdrawal left a power vacuum, which local forces immediately tried to fill, sparking fresh fighting, especially in the northeast.

Some of this fighting has pitted the MLC and smaller rebel movements against forces allied with the Rwandan-backed Congolese Rally for Democracy (RCD), which controls much of eastern DRC.

According to the United Nations, around 2.5 million people have died either as a direct result of the war or indirectly through famine or illness - Sapa-AFP.