Congolese President Joseph Kabila and his Ugandan counterpart, Yoweri Museveni, signed an agreement on Saturday to immediately pull back their troops 150km from the border to ease tensions over an oil-rich border lake.
Several cross-border skirmishes last month have left at least four people dead -- three Ugandans and one British oil contractor. The Briton was killed by Congolese troops as his team conducted seismic studies from a boat on the contested oil-rich area of Lake Albert.
The two leaders agreed to work together to explore and exploit oil in the Lake Albert area and to lay a joint pipeline to distribute any oil.
Kabila and Museveni signed the agreement in the presence of Tanzanian President Jakaya Kikwete, diplomats and the media.
They agreed that a joint team will begin work within a month to demarcate the contested area of the lake. Last month, Congolese and Ugandan officials said the exercise would determine which country owns Rukwanzi -- a small but strategic island at the southern tip of Lake Albert.
The leaders agreed to meet once a year and to raise their diplomatic missions to ambassadorial level to help improve relations.
"Black Africans are always at each other's throats," Kabila said. "We are determined to see long-term peace reign among the two countries. Next time we meet, we won't discuss about border problems, but we will be discussing developmental issues."
"What's happening is the tidying up of the mess, and today's signature of the document is an end to that long process," Museveni said.
The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and Uganda also agreed to move refugee camps 150km away from the border to improve security, Ugandan Foreign Affairs Minister Sam Kutesa said, reading a statement after the agreement was signed.
The presidents held a one-day meeting on Saturday after senior Congolese and Ugandan officials began talks in the northeastern Tanzanian town of Arusha on Thursday to discuss the tensions.
Last October, Museveni said Uganda had found oil in the Lake Albert area, with production expected to begin in 2009 and initial output to be between 6,000 barrels and 10,000 barrels a day.
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