South Africa would help the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) to find a diplomatic solution to the ongoing fighting in the country, South African Defense Minister Mosioua Lekota said on Wednesday.

He was speaking only day after the forces of warlord, Laurent Nkunda, apparently attacked and killed three men who wanted to return to the regular army.

Congolese Minister of Defense Adolphe Onusumba told Lekota, who is in Kinshasa, that the solution to the conflict in the east was not a military one but diplomatic efforts, the SAPA news agency reported.

"We would be able to assist to create a situation for that to happen," Lekota said in an address to hundreds of South African troops who are in the DRC as part of a United Nations (UN) peacekeeping force.

He told the troops that South Africa would stay in the country in the Great Lakes Region, possibly even after the UN has left.

"More and more demands are being made on our country to help ensure that democratic institutions are set up," he said. Nkunda commands thousands of fighters who have repeatedly attacked Congolese Defense Force positions, as well as the 17,500 strong UN peacekeeping force.

He was a former Congolese army general who quit, claiming the country's minorities were being sidelined.

The incident on Tuesday came after the inauguration last week of Joseph Kabila as president following the DRC's first democratic election in four decades.

(Xinhua News Agency December 14, 2006)