Burundi leader meets FNL rebel boss in peace drive

DAR ES SALAAM, June 17 (Reuters) Burundi's president and the leader of his country's last rebel group held talks in neighbouring Tanzania today to try to end a deadlock implementing a peace deal signed last year.

That agreement with Agathon Rwasa's Forces for National Liberation (FNL) was supposed to end more than a decade of broader ethnic war that has killed 300,000 people since 1993 in the tiny central African nation.

But wrangling over the deal has hobbled progress.

Tanzania's foreign minister said President Pierre Nkurunziza and Rwasa started private face-to-face talks at a Dar es Salaam hotel after hours of shuttling back and forth by officials on both sides.

''That is what is going on now,'' Bernard Membe told reporters.

Nkurunziza and Rwasa last met at the signing of the peace agreement in September.

The Hutu FNL wants fresh negotiations on its role after its fighters are absorbed into the national army under the terms of the ceasefire. It also wants the release of FNL prisoners and has been blamed by the government for delaying the work of a truce monitoring team.

Tanzania's president, Jakaya Kikwete, and South African mediators led by Jeff Radebe, South Africa's Transport Minister, met both men separately earlier today.

REUTERS SW RAI2003