"We are not going very fast at all. But there is nothing abnormal in that," said Haile Menkerios, special advisor to UN mediator Moustapha Niasse.
Two committees discussing the finer details of an interim constitution as well as security and military matters are Tuesday due to report back to the mediation team, led by Niasse and South Africa's Minister for Provincial and Local Government Sydney Mufamadi.
"That deadline is still on," Menkerios told AFP.
Representatives from the DRC government, political opposition, rebel groups and civil society started meeting in South Africa Monday in attempts to put into practice a ceasefire agreement signed in December.
The committee dealing with constitutional matters decided to change its methodology Friday to speed up negotiations, and delegates were asked to present amendments instead of submissions.
"The interim constitution must entrench decentralisation. We dont want any system that promises decentralisation without giving it. We oppose any idea that will give the central government too much power," Thomas Nziratimana of the main rebel group, the Congolese Rally for Democracy (RCD), said earlier.
Menkerios said the mediation team met both committees Saturday morning to discuss ways to narrow the differences of opinions between delegates.
Security and military matters are likely to be the most contentious issues in the latest round of talks.
The Congolese Rally for Democratic Change is calling for an international peace-keeping force in the DRC capital, Kinshasa, while the government says it will depend on need.
DRC ambassador to South Africa Bene M'Poko said earlier: "We dont reject anything out of hand. It all depends on the need. Why do we need an international force? Where? What for? We wont do something just because it sounds good." Menkerios said the mediation team was meeting with the government, MLC and RCD on Saturday to look at position papers tabled during the week.
The documents focus on the formation of a new national army for the DRC and proposed measures to protect political players and institutions during the two-year transition period to the first democratic elections since independence from Belgian four decades ago.
The DRC war broke out in August 1998, and at its height drew in more than half a dozen African countries, claiming some 2.5 million lives directly or indirectly through disease or starvation - Sapa-AFP
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