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Pres ident Joseph Kabila of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and his Rwandan counterpart Paul Kagame are to meet in Abuja today, as renewed tensions push the two neighbours back to the brink of war.

Nigeria's President Olusegun Obasanjo announced yesterday that he would host the talks, two days after the DRC confirmed it had deployed reinforcements to its volatile eastern region to deal with rebels it claims are backed by Rwanda.

This move, which followed renewed clashes between "dissident soldiers" and loyalist troops, has triggered fears for the future of a year-old peace pact between the central African neighbours.

"In continuation of efforts to achieve lasting peace and political stability in all parts of Africa, President Olusegun Obasanjo will ... host peace talks," Obasanjo's spokeswoman Oluremi Oyo said, in a statement.

Diplomatic sources in Kinshasa said Obasanjo had issued an invitation to the talks on June 18 last week, during a brief stopover in the DRC for talks with Kabila on his way back from state visit to the Zambian capital Lusaka.

Oyo's statement said that the Nigerian leader was acting in his capacity as chairman of the African Union's first Peace and Security Council.

"The president has also been in constant dialogue previously with both President Kagame and President Kabila to resolve differences between their governments," she said.

The DRC -- a huge, heavily-forested central African country formerly known as Zaire -- is struggling to emerge from a five-year civil war which left more than 2,5-million people dead in combat or through disease and malnutrition, and drew in forces from seven African countries.

Kabila's government is preparing to hold his country's first democratic elections in 40 years, but has been destabilised by rebel uprisings and by two attempts in the past three months to overthrow him by force.

For the past month, the region around the eastern town of Bukavu has been the scene of clashes between so-called dissident soldiers, who have refused to be incorporated into Kabila's new army, and government troops.

The rebels overran and held Bukavu, which lies near the border with Rwanda, for one week at the beginning of June. Kabila has accused Rwanda of backing the insurgents, who pulled out of the town on June 9.

One of the uprising's leaders, Colonel Jules Mutebesi, fled to Rwanda on Monday with 300 men after fresh fighting broke out in Kamanyola, a border town.

Kabila announced on Tuesday in a televised statement that the DRC was strengthening its military presence in the east of the country to "protect the population and neutralise armed groups".

The deployment has raised fears of a new round of fighting in the mineral rich republic between government troops and Rwandan forces, which have often intervened in previous conflicts in the east of the country.

The United Nations Security Council has warned Rwanda, Burundi and Uganda not to take the renewed fighting as a excuse to send their forces back into the DRC, and high-level US and British delegations have urged peace.

South African President Thabo Mbeki has expressed concern over a "potentially catastrophic" new conflict between the DRC and Rwanda.

Rwanda first sent soldiers into the DRC in 1996, ostensibly to hunt Hutu extremists responsible for the 1994 Rwandan genocide.

But Kigali's forces also helped Congolese rebels under Kabila's father, Laurent-Desire Kabila, to overthrow the despotic regime of Mobutu Sese Seko.

In 1998 Rwandam troops returned, and this time sided with a new generation of rebels against their former ally, by then in control of Kinshasa.

The invasion triggered a conflict which also drew in forces from Angola, Burundi, Chad, Uganda and Zimbabwe.

In April last year a peace pact was signed under which Joseph Kabila, who had succeeded his father, was to set up a transition government and prepare for polls, while foreign troops were to be sent home.

The latest fighting has left this deal in jeopardy, observers warn. – Sapa-AFP.

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