KIGALI, Rwanda 

Rwandan President Paul Kagame has said the country's tensions with the Democratic Republic of the Congo are not motivated by the exploitation of Congolese resources or a desire to seize territory.

Last year, in a speech to members of the Congolese community in Egypt, Congo's President Felix Tshisekedi accused Kagame of wanting to "split" his country and "annex the eastern part" rich in natural resources.

However, opening the annual national dialogue in the capital of Kigali on Thursday, Kagame said: "The problem that Rwanda has with the Congo is mainly about the FDLR presence there, security threats, as well as the genocidal ideology."

The president was referring to the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), an armed group active in eastern Congo whose elements are blamed for the genocide against the Tutsi ethnic group in 1994.

“It is not about minerals; that one is aside for sure...If we were really in the Congo for minerals, Rwanda would be a hundred times richer than it is today.”

In response to threats of international sanctions over the Congo conflict, Kagame took a defiant stance, claiming that the international community is to blame for the region's decades-long conflict.

“These people in the international community, I think, took things literally ... The amount of threats we come under on a daily basis; we will do this if you don’t do this, we will do that if you don’t do that, you know, sometimes you feel choked by this kind of ... but instead of being choked by all that, I will be choked by just being defiant and telling you to go to hell.”

“You can’t create problems for me at the same time, come and blame me for these problems, and then start threatening me...”

Kagame mentioned that the conflict in Congo was neither started by Rwanda nor did it start from Rwanda, stressing that his country’s “defensive measures” are a response to persistent security threats from Congo.

M23 rebels have been at the center of the conflict in eastern Congo.

Allegedly supported by Rwanda, according to the UN and Western nations, the group controls significant territory in eastern Congo, including the provincial capitals of Goma and Bukavu, which it seized early in 2025.

Tshisekedi last year called on Kagame to end tensions between their neighboring countries, work together to make peace, and stop the violence in eastern Congo by directing the M23 rebels to end escalation, speaking during the second edition of the Global Gateway Forum organized by the European Union in Brussels.

But Rwanda's Foreign Minister Olivier Nduhungirehe, in reaction, then called the remarks “political theatrics, which have become ridiculous.”