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PARIS, June 7 (AFP) - A first session of preparatory negotiations between the government of Rwanda and the armed opposition in the little African state was held here Saturday, French Foreign Ministry sources said.
The talks between the government of President Juvenal Habyarimana and the Rwandan Patriotic Front are to continue Sunday, and follow contacts between the two sides made in the Ugandan capital Kampala last month.
Attending were Rwanda's Foreign Minister Boniface Ngulinzira, for the government, and the front's foreign affairs' spokesman Mazi Mpaka.
The United States was represented in an observer capacity at the talks hosted by the French government.
Armed conflict broke out in Rwanda in October 1990 with an invasion by the front, which is largely composed of Rwandans of the Tutsi ethnic group who had been refugees in Uganda.
The Paris meeting came a day after reports of heavy fighting between rebel and government forces at Byumba, 70 kilometres (40 miles) northeast of the Rwandan capital Kigali.
This resumption of fighting came only a few hours after announcement in Brussels by the front and three opposition parties that they wanted to end the fighting in the former Belgian colony.
hm/ma/fc AFP AFP SEQN-0042
