Regional leaders meeting to end the chronic violence in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo failed to find a breakthrough, with Rwanda saying only that "steady progress" had been made.

DR Congo President Joseph Kabila and his Rwandan counterpart Paul Kagame met Monday at a lakeside resort hosted by Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, and also attended by the leaders of Burundi, South Sudan and Tanzania.

Regional heads of state began talks Saturday in an effort to find a lasting solution to chronic unrest in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo but less than a third of those invited turned up.

The mini-summit opened in the Ugandan capital a day late after officials said that regional defence ministers failed to agree on the proposals to be discussed and it was unclear what if anything they had decided.

Rwanda has refused to take custody of 24 rebels who surrendered to U.N. peacekeepers in DR Congo, which accuses Kigali of backing an army mutiny in its restive east, a U.N. spokesman said Saturday.

The 24 rebels, who say they are Rwandan nationals, turned themselves in to the U.N.'s peacekeeping mission in DR Congo in May after deserting from the M23, a group formed by Congolese army mutineers that has been engaged in running battles with the regular army in the eastern region of Kivu.

Uganda has arrested a Belgian citizen of Rwandan origin wanted by a court in his adopted homeland for involvement in the 1994 genocide, police said Friday.

Thaddee Kwitonda, 51, was detained in Kampala on Thursday after police tracked his movements for several months, police spokesman Asuman Mugenyi told AFP.

The U.N. court for Rwanda on Thursday handed a life sentence to a former youth minister found guilty of being among the top planners of the 1994 genocide.

Callixte Nzabonimana was found guilty of genocide, plotting to commit genocide, incitement to commit genocide and extermination.

The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda is to transfer a fourth case file of a genocide suspect to Rwandan courts as part of its winding up strategy, court papers showed Wednesday.

The case is that of the fugitive former mayor of Nyakizu, Ladislas Ntaganzwa.