No French Ground Troops For Congo, Kouchner Says

Rwanda says France armed, trained and propped up the Hutu militias that carried out the genocide of the Tutsis.

France on Tuesday ruled out sending combat troops to Congo to help U.N. peacekeepers there because the conflict zone is too close to Rwanda, further dimming hopes that an EU force can be put together to intervene quickly.

France and Rwanda have extremely tense relations because of mutual accusations of a role in the 1994 Rwandan genocide.

The United Nations has asked for an EU "bridging force" to reinforce the 17,000-strong U.N. mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo, known as MONUC, but EU ministers are split about how to respond.

The U.N. force has been unable to contain a surge in violence in eastern Congo between the forces of renegade General Laurent Nkunda and pro-government militias. An estimated 250,000 people have been displaced by the violence in recent weeks.

"It's out of the question for French ground troops to take part because the Goma airport is too close to the Rwandan border," French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner told a parliamentary committee, referring to the eastern Congolese city at the heart of the conflict zone.

He did not say exactly how that proximity was problematic.

Kouchner did not exclude French participation in a possible EU force, but said it could not be in a combat role.

"We could be the backbone of some kind of force that would be charged with securing (the area) but would not take part in any fighting," Kouchner said.

French reticence could deal a severe blow to prospects of setting up an EU force. France, which holds the rotating EU presidency, has a historic role in Congo where it took a leading role in the 2003 "Artemis" peacekeeping mission in northeastern Congo.

But it also has a historic and controversial role in Rwanda, where it conducted the "Turquoise" mission in 1994 that Paris says was a humanitarian attempt to halt the genocide.

Rwanda says France armed, trained and propped up the Hutu militias that carried out the genocide of the Tutsis, and protected their subsequent flight to Congo.

France rejects the accusations. A French judge has accused Rwandan President Paul Kagame, a Tutsi, of playing a part in the assassination of his Hutu predecessor -- the event that marked the start of the genocide.

The Rwandan genocide and flight of Hutu militias to Congo are at the root of the violence there. Nkunda, a Tutsi, is battling Hutu militias which he says are being used by the Congolese army as allies to fight him.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Friday repeated a call for an EU force to help out in Congo, saying it may take up to six months for the United Nations to deploy 3,000 more peacekeepers to Congo to join its force there.

EU foreign ministers who met in Brussels on Monday took no decision and asked EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana and the European Commission to prepare a response to Ban's letter.

"The response should come tomorrow or the day after, in time for the European council of Thursday and Friday," Kouchner told the French legislators.

He said it would be a "moral abdication" for the EU not to respond to the Congolese crisis.