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The agreement signed on 27 June 2025 in Washington DC between the DRC and Rwanda under US mediation is Trump style transactional politics and leaves many issues unaddressed. To start with, it is strange, almost surreal, in a dual respect. First, this peace deal has been concluded between two countries that are not at war, at least from the Rwandan perspective. Rwanda has always denied that it supports the AFC/M23 rebel movement and that the Rwanda Defence Force (RDF) operates in the DRC. As Kigali has consistently denied involvement in what it calls a strictly Congolese affair, its signing of a bilateral peace deal seems illogical. Second, one of the main belligerents, the AFC/M23, is not party to the agreement. The rebel movement was not involved in the negotiations and is only mentioned twice in the document with a reference to talks between the Congolese government and the AFC/M23 under the mediation of Qatar. Therefore, the paradox: non-belligerents have signed a peace agreement, belligerents have not.
Apart from these oddities, the agreement raises multiple issues. Both parties’ security concerns are addressed in two successive identically phrased provisions under the heading “Territorial integrity and prohibition of hostilities: The Parties agree to implement the Harmonized Plan for the Neutralization of the FDLR [Forces démocratiques pour la libération du Rwanda – Rwandan rebel movement operating in the DRC] and Disengagement of Forces/Lifting of Defensive Measures by Rwanda (CONOPS) of October 31, 2024”. The presence of the FDLR in eastern DRC has been presented by Rwanda as a long-standing security concern and a recurring justification for RDF operations in the DRC. While the neutralization of the FDLR is obviously the responsibility of the DRC government and the Forces armées de la RDC (FARDC), this raises the question of how this can be achieved in the areas controlled by the AFC/M23. This side of the agreement will thus depend on the outcome, if any, of the Doha talks between the DRC government and the AFC/M23 rebel group.
The use of the ambiguous formulation “Disengagement of Forces/Lifting of Defensive Measures” is meant to allow both parties to sign the deal, combining the DRC’s claim that Rwandan troops operate in the DRC with Rwanda’s denial of such presence and its affirmation that it has merely increased its defence on its side of the common border. This ambiguity has been included in the text despite the fact that the US has on several occasions accused Rwanda of having deployed its army in the DRC and insisted on troop withdrawal. This provision is also contrary to UNSC Resolution 2773 which called on AFC/M23 to end its offensives and the creation of parallel state institutions, while Rwanda was called on to end all support for AFC/M23 and withdraw its troops from the DRC immediately. Indeed, the latest (July 2025), para. 42 by the UN group of experts said Rwanda’s military support for AFC/M23 was not “primarily” aimed at addressing threats posed by the FDLR, asserting that Kigali was instead focused on “conquering additional territories”.
The implementation of the agreement will depend on the behaviour of a party that is not involved in the deal. The AFC/M23 controls large parts of North and South Kivu. In early 2025 it took both provinces’ capitals Goma and Bukavu. While Tshisekedi long refused direct talks with them, accusing them of working for Rwanda, in April the government and AFC/M23 issued a joint statement saying they had agreed to halt fighting while they work towards a permanent truce. This announcement followed talks mediated by Qatar. The two sides said they had “agreed to work towards the conclusion of a truce”. However, half a dozen truces and ceasefires have been agreed and then collapsed again since the current war started at the end of 2021. A “Declaration of Principles” signed in Doha on 19 July does not contain enforceable commitments and was diversely interpreted by the government and the rebels. Indeed, it is hard to see the interest the AFC/M23 has in giving up its territorial gains and access to economic resources. Therefore, Rwanda again holds the key: if it ceases supporting the rebels, they may well collapse as they did in 2013. The Washington agreement provides for this obligation: “The parties shall take all possible measures to ensure that all armed groups within the conflict area cease engaging in hostilities.” However, this would require Rwanda to admit what it has always denied: that it supports the AFC/M23.
Part six of the Washington agreement, dealing with the “regional economic integration framework”, bears the stamp of Trump and Tshisekedi’s transactional logic. Inspired by American ambitions in Ukraine, in February this year Tshisekedi proposed a three billion dollar “strategic partnership” which would give the US access to critical minerals in exchange for security guarantees. “The parties shall launch and/or expand cooperation on shared priorities such as national park management; hydropower development; de-risking of mineral supply chains; joint management of resources in Lake Kivu; and transparent, formalized end-to-end mineral value chains (from mine to processed metal) that link both countries, in partnership, as appropriate, with the U.S. government and U.S. investors” (emphasis added). It remains to be seen whether the perspective of joint management is realistic after Rwanda illegally exploited Congolese resources during decades.
While the deal was called “historic”, there are many loose ends. The main obstacle remains the two-armed groups. The AFC/M23 said the agreement is a “tiny part of the solution” and called the idea that this was a conflict between the DRC and Rwanda “an unacceptable deception”. In other words, nothing substantial is achieved as long as the Doha process drags on. As for the FDLR, they are at least in part present in the zones controlled by the AFC/M23, which begs the question: how they can be “neutralized” by the FARDC? However, Rwanda has made clear that it will not withdraw its troops (or “lift defensive measures”, in its own vocabulary) if the threat of the FDLR exists. Despite deploying its military in the Kivu region and actively supporting proxies there since 1996, Rwanda has never genuinely attempted to neutralize the FDLR. To the contrary, it has redeployed and demobilized FDLR elements in eastern DRC and even collaborated with FDLR elements in mineral exploitation, while intermediaries in Kigali participated in FDLR gold deals Kagame now holds the FDLR issue up his sleeve. On 4 July, he told reporters in Kigali that Rwanda was committed to implementing the deal, but that it could fail if Congo did not live up to its promises to neutralize the FDLR. Besides the AFC/M23 and the FDLR, many other armed groups are active in the region, both Congolese and from neighbouring countries. Their neutralization has proven impossible for decades, and it is unclear how they can be disarmed in the short or medium term.
Other issues are left unaddressed by the Washington agreement. One is the wider regional dynamics. The relations between Rwanda and Burundi are outright hostile. They are ambiguous between Rwanda and Uganda, as they have competing economic and military interests in their Congolese backyard. Uganda and Burundi have been and still are militarily active in the DRC where they are involved in shifting alliances.
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A final issue that cannot be addressed in a peace agreement is core to the conflicts that have destabilized the region for three decades. The extreme weakness of the Congolese state, unable to assume essential functions of sovereignty, such as territorial control, is a crucial enabler of regional insecurity. The FARDC are the mirror of the weak state, allowing operations of neighbouring government armies and of domestic and cross-border non-state armed groups, as well as the illegal exploitation of natural resources, organized plunder and widespread cross-border smuggling. Without state reconstruction, the DRC will be unable to achieve either national development or regional stability.
Filip Reyntjens is Emeritus Professor of Law and Politics at the Institute of Development Policy (IOB), University of Antwerp. Among other assignments, he has been the chair of IOB, visiting professor in Paris, Pretoria, Butare (Rwanda), Kinshasa and Mbarara (Uganda), and vice-rector of the University of Mbuji-Mayi (DRC). For over forty years, he has specialised in the law and politics of Sub-Sahara Africa, and the Great Lakes Region in particular, on which he has published several books and hundreds of scholarly articles. His latest books are The Great African War. Congo and Regional Geopolitics, 1996-2006 (Cambridge University Press 2009), Political governance in post-genocide Rwanda (Cambridge University Press 2013), Le genocide des Tutsi au Rwanda (Presses universitaires de France 2017, 2021) and Modern Rwanda. A Political History (Cambridge University Press, 2024). He has acted as an expert witness on the law and politics of Rwanda, Burundi and the DRC in national courts in several countries and before the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda.
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