A regional peace meeting on Burundi in Tanzania achieved its goal of getting the rebel Forces for the Defence of Democracy (FDD) to recommit to a failed seven-month-old ceasefire, South African Deputy President Jacob Zuma said yesterday.

Despite regularly trading accusations of violating the ceasefire, signed on December 2, the Burundi government and the FDD agreed on Sunday to give the truce another chance at talks in the Tanzanian economic capital.

Burundi's second rebel group, the National Liberation Forces (FNL), stayed away from the talks, after launching earlier this month the fiercest assault on the capital since the start of the decade-long civil war.

But Zuma, a mediator in the civil war pitting Hutu rebels against the Tutsi-dominated army, stressed that Sunday's meeting had not aimed to tackle the FNL attacks.

"The FDD have not come full force into the peace process that they signed on December 2.

That is what our meeting was about. We wanted to get the FDD to participate in the process and implement the agreement they signed," Zuma said.

"The FNL attacks were not doing any good to the peace process.

We need to defend that process and the people of Burundi.

However the context of the Dar es Salaam meeting was to discuss the FDD participation and not the FNL".

"The FNL cannot be a deciding factor in whether or not the peace process goes forward in Burundi," Zuma added.

The talks, which included Burundi President Domitien Ndayizeye and FDD leader Pierre Nkurunziza, were brokered by the Ugandan and Tanzanian presidents Yoweri Museveni and Benjamin Mkapa and mediated by South Africa's Zuma.

Also present were United Nations and African Union representatives.

The FNL's latest five-day assault on the capital Bujumbura, launched on July 7, left some 300 combatants and dozens of civilians dead, with reports of civilian women and children being massacred.

The fierce assault on the capital had prompted calls for the mandate of African peacekeepers in the central African country to be extended - a question left untouched during Sunday's talks.

The Hutu-led FNL has refused to take part in the so-called Regional Consultations on Burundi and has called for former South African president Nelson Mandela to mediate, accusing his compatriot Zuma of bias.

More than 300 000 people, mostly civilians, have so far died in the war. – Sapa-AFP.