Regional summit on Burundi peace in Tanzania next week

KAMPALA (AFP) Aug 07, 2004
Regional African heads of states will gather next week in Tanzania's commercial capital Dar es Salaam to "ratify" a Burundi power-sharing agreement and reconfirm a timetable for elections, a Ugandan foreign ministry official said on Saturday.

"A summit to run on August 11 and 12, has been called to ratify the agreement reached in Pretoria and to re-confirm the election process and the timetable," Foreign ministry permanent secretary, Julius Onen, told AFP by phone on Saturday.

Uganda chairs a grouping of regional states overseeing efforts to reach a lasting peace in Burundi, where a civil war, which started in 1993 and has claimed the lives of more than 300,000 people.

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