UN humanitarian chief Jan Egeland on Saturday sought to boost painstakingly slow peace talks between Uganda and Lord's Resistance Army rebels to end northern Uganda's brutal, two-decade war.
On his last trip to Africa in his current position, Egeland met with the LRA and Ugandan delegations in the southern Sudanese capital of Juba, the venue for the on-again, off-again negotiations.
Egeland lauded the relative calm that has descended on northern Uganda since the negotiations started four months ago and expressed hope a settlement could be reached.
"This is one of the quietest periods since the year 2000 and hundreds of thousands of people are preparing to return to their ancestral lands," Egeland told reporters during a short break in his discussions.
The UN envoy said the international community has seen the seriousness of the talks and had offered four million dollars to the peace process and helicopters to truce monitors.
"It took time before the international community saw the potential of the process, it now realises this and it is there to help," he added.
Egeland may visit on Sunday at least one of two neutral camps in southern Sudan where LRA fighters, who some believe could number about 5,000, are to gather under a landmark truce signed in August and renewed last month.
The talks mediator confirmed that LRA supremo Joseph Kony and his deputy Vincent Otti would visit a camp near the Democratic Republic of Congo on Sunday.
"We now have specific support at the assembly points so there will be better provision of food and water as we believe the LRA will begin to assemble," Egeland said, adding that the UN is working with the rebels to improve humanitarian operations, notably freeing some of the people abducted.
Egeland has offered to see senior LRA leaders under certain conditions but has made clear he has no intention of discussing their demand for the withdrawal of International Criminal Court (ICC) warrants for alleged war crimes.
"People being indicted does not prevent me from seeing them, but I will not of course deal with the issue of ICC when I am there. ICC is an independent institution," said Egeland, adding that he would confirm seeing the rebel chief on Sunday.
Elusive Kony, one of five top rebel leaders accused of horrific atrocities by the ICC, has refused to sign or implement a peace deal until the charges are dropped.
The Ugandan government, which has offered the rebels total amnesty in return for an agreement, however, insists that a pact must be signed and implemented before it will ask The Hague-based court to quash the charges.
Speaking after his meeting with Egeland, Ugandan Interior Minister Ruhakana Rugunda, the chief of Kampala's delegation, said the peace process "enjoys the full support of the government of Uganda.
"We are confident that a peace settlement that will be durable will come out of these negotiations," he told reporters.
The war crimes issue has become a major bone of contention at the negotiations aimed at ending the 19-year conflict that has killed tens of thousands and displaced nearly two million.
The talks began in July and a month later produced the truce that was renewed and revised after each side accused the other of multiple violations.
But since the truce, there has been little progress in the negotiations with the two parties bickering over numerous issues, including the size and composition of the Ugandan army, power-sharing and a new constitution.
Despite the difficulties, the Juba talks are seen by many as the best chance to end the conflict that Egeland and others regularly describe as one of the world's worst, and most-forgotten, humanitarian crises.
The conflict has raged since 1988, Kony and the LRA took leadership of a regional rebellion among northern Uganda's ethnic Acholi minority.
After Juba, Egeland travels to Khartoum for talks with senior government officials, including President Omar al-Beshir, UN officials and humanitarian and donor representatives about the crisis in Darfur, UN officials said.
He is also expected to visit Darfur itself to see several refugee camps and meet with traditional leaders as well as representatives and field commanders from both signatories and non-signatories of the Darfur peace agreement.