The United States has welcomed a ceasefire agreement for the Democratic Republic of the Congo and offered to help put it into effect.
"We look forward to reviewing carefully the text of the agreement to see how we can most effectively support implementation of this accord," a State Department statement said.
On Wednesday in Lusaka, African defence and foreign ministers endorsed the draft ceasefire document to halt hostilities and withdraw foreign forces from the Congo.
President Frederick Chiluba of Zambia announced yesterday that African heads of state would converge on Lusaka tomorrow to sign the agreement.
The State Department said: "The United States welcomes the ceasefire agreement . . . We congratulate President Chiluba and the government of Zambia for their central role in hosting the talks and leading the mediation effort."
It said the United States encouraged the parties to the conflict to sign as quickly as possible, to implement and respect the ceasefire and to act in good faith.
The war in the Congo erupted last August after mutinous soldiers took up arms against President Laurent Kabila, accusing him of corruption, incompetence and a failure to chart out a political programme for the former Zaire.
The US Assistant Secretary of State, Ms Susan Rice, tried to mediate an end to the conflict last November. Mr Kabila left Kinshasa yesterday for talks with the Zimbabwean President, Mr Robert Mugabe, in Harare on the draft peace accord, aides said.
Mr Kabila will attend the Organisation of African Unity summit in Algiers from Monday, they added.
The war has pitted the Kabila government against Tutsi-led rebels backed by Rwanda and Uganda. Zimbabwe, Namibia and Angola have sent troops and military equipment to help Kabila.
The peace plan provides for a ceasefire 24 hours after the signing, the withdrawal of foreign troops, the cessation of all military activities, the creation of a new national army and the release of prisoners of war.
Western diplomats in Kinshasa expressed reservations about the ceasefire.
"I think this is a surprising deal, but it is a good step forward, a step towards peace," one diplomat said yesterday.
"But the deal is surprising, it seems as if the government has backed down on all its key demands. It has backed down and negotiated with the rebels, it has conceded that the Interahamwe are a problem, which to some extent means that it is conceding that Rwanda's presence in the country is justified," he added.
The Interahamwe are Hutu extremists who led Rwanda's 1994 genocide.
When Tutsi-led rebels overran Rwanda, the Interahamwe militia regrouped in refugee camps in the Congo and other neighbouring states, launching raids across the border.
Rwanda has justified its involvement in the Congo war by the need to ensure the security of its borders.
Some diplomats predicted that Mr Kabila's entourage would feel threatened by the changes that peace might bring.
"Kabila's enemies are now a lot closer. Many people around him will feel threatened by the new political order. This could make things difficult for Kabila," a diplomat said.
There was little celebration of the peace accord in Kinshasa. Most of the six million inhabitants of the sprawling city seemed unaware that it had been agreed.
President Pasteur Bizimungu of Rwanda said in Kigali yesterday he fully supported the new deal to end the Congo war because it included a commitment to disarm the Hutu militiamen.
Mr Bizimungu said he would fly to Lusaka tomorrow to join other African leaders in signing the agreement to end 11 months of war in the Congo. Rwanda has sent thousands of troops to support the Congolese rebel army and, of all the African states involved in the war, had been widely seen as the least likely to halt its military campaign.
But Mr Bizimungu said he only sent troops into Congo to fight the Interahamwe militiamen and former Rwandan government soldiers who led the slaughter of 800,000 people, most of them ethnic Tutsis, in the 100-day genocide.
The killers fled into eastern Congo when Mr Bizimungu's Tutsi-led rebel army took power in July 1994, and have since launched cross-border attacks into northern Rwanda.
Congolese rebels reported heavy fighting in the key southern town of Kabinda yesterday, despite the ceasefire deal announced earlier.