Officials from Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo are set to reconvene in Geneva on September 16 and 17, 2026, for the seventh meeting of the Joint Security Coordination Mechanism (JSCM), the body tasked with overseeing implementation of the US-backed Washington Accords. The two-day session brings together representatives of both countries alongside mediators from the United States, Qatar, Togo, and the African Union Commission. The talks arrive at a tense moment, as fighting continues in eastern DRC with several key security commitments yet to be fully implemented.
The Washington Accords, signed on June 27, 2025, require the DRC to neutralize the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), while Rwanda is expected to lift defensive measures along the border. More than a year after signing, both governments remain at odds over how — and how fast — those obligations should be met.
The FDLR question is expected to dominate discussions once again. In July 2026, the Congolese government announced that an FDLR faction had accepted a disarmament, demobilization and cantonment protocol — a move Rwanda rejected, insisting the accord requires the group to be neutralized, not negotiated with. Rwanda has repeatedly accused Kinshasa of maintaining ties with and supporting the FDLR — a militia founded by individuals linked to the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi — rather than dismantling it as required under the accords, warning that this continued engagement undermines the entire peace process. The DRC government denies these allegations, and the dispute over disarmament versus dialogue with the FDLR remains one of the central trust deficits slowing implementation.
Progress has not been entirely absent. At the sixth JSCM meeting in Geneva (August 12–13, 2026), the two sides agreed to advance two initiatives to strengthen monitoring and verification of the accords on the ground and asked the US to weigh in at the next meeting. The DRC also presented its DDR plan for the FDLR, while the African Union Commission briefed parties on outcomes from its High-Level Meeting in Gaborone, Botswana (July 24–25, 2026).
Beyond the bilateral track, Geneva sits alongside a parallel process involving M23 rebels. The peace framework requires Rwanda and the DRC to support a separate Qatar-led dialogue with M23, which produced the Doha Framework for Peace, signed by Kinshasa and the Congo River Alliance (AFC/M23) in Doha on November 15, 2025.
Expectations for this round remain measured. Negotiators are expected to build toward a trilateral planning conference in October 2026, culminating in a revised operations order. As observers note, the September talks will test whether Rwanda and the DRC can translate the peace agreement into tangible security gains — a test only partially met across six previous JSCM meetings since the accords were signed, with the FDLR dispute standing as the clearest illustration of how far apart the two sides remain.
