The M23 armed group said Tuesday it had agreed to a request from the United States to withdraw from the city of Uvira in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo.
The militia captured most of the town last week, in a move Burundi called a "middle finger" to the US after the signing of a peace deal in Washington.
The group "will unilaterally withdraw its forces from the city of Uvira, as requested by the US mediators", the M23 said in a statement signed by coordinator Corneil Nangaa.
The M23 called for adequate measures to be put in place to manage the city, including "demilitarisation, protecting its population and infrastructure, and monitoring the ceasefire with a neutral force".
It said it also wanted a framework ceasefire deal reached in a parallel peace process to be implemented. The accord was negotiated in the Qatari capital Doha in November but never respected on the ground.
The M23 added that it was pulling out its forces as a gesture "to instil trust in order to give the Doha peace process every chance to succeed".
Washington summit on DRC-Rwanda relations aims for peace despite deep mistrust
After the capture of Uvira, the US ambassador to the UN, Mike Waltz, told the Security Council that Kigali was leading the region towards greater instability and war.
Last weekend, the US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, also highlighted the American administration's displeasure. "Rwanda's actions in eastern DRC are a clear violation of the Washington Accords signed by President Trump, and the United States will take action to ensure promises made to the President are kept," Rubio said in an X post.
Burundi, which neighbours both the DRC and Rwanda, views the prospect of Uvira in the hands of Rwanda-backed forces as an existential threat.
Uvira sits across Lake Tanganyika from the Burundian economic capital Bujumbura, with only around 20 kilometres between the two cities.
More than 40,000 Congolese have fled the fighting and arrived in Burundi in the space of a week, the Burundian foreign minister told AFP.
According to an initial estimate by United Nations humanitarian agency OCHA, more than 200,000 people have been displaced within South Kivu province since December 2.
DRC and Rwanda hold fresh talks in Washington to revive fragile peace deal
According to several European diplomatic sources, the DRC fears the M23 pushing on towards the copper- and cobalt-rich Katanga province in the southeast, the vast country's mining hub -- which the state relies on to fill its coffers thanks to mining companies' taxes.
The M23 is supported by up to 7,000 Rwandan troops in the Congolese east, according to UN experts, who accuse Rwanda of seeking to extract the DRC's mineral wealth.
Burundi, which has thorny relations with Rwanda and fears a wider conflict in Africa's Great Lakes region, has deployed around 18,000 men to eastern DRC
While denying giving the M23 military support, Rwanda argues it faces an existential threat from the presence across the Congolese border of ethnic Hutu militants with links to the 1994 Rwandan genocide of the Tutsis.
