Former Congolese President Joseph Kabila, accused by the government of supporting rebels in the country’s east, returned to Congo from self-imposed exile on Friday, arriving in rebel-held Goma city, two of the ex-president’s associates and a rebel official said.

Kabila, who left Congo in 2023, came to Goma “to participate in peace efforts” in the conflict-hit east where Rwanda-backed M23 rebels have seized large swaths of territory, including the strategic eastern city, said a close aide of the former president.

Another associate of Kabila’s and a senior M23 official also confirmed the former president’s return. The three spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media on the topic.

Congo’s decades-long conflict escalated in January, when the rebels advanced and seized Goma, followed by the town of Bukavu in February. The fighting has killed some 3,000 people and worsened what was already one of the world’s largest humanitarian crises, with around 7 million people displaced.

Kabila seeks “to take part in efforts to find peace in the country,” his aide said. “Everyone is talking about Congo without the Congolese … this is not normal.”

The former president is expected to address Goma residents at some point, according to his associate, who accompanied Kabila on the trip.

It was not immediately clear how long Kabila would remain in Goma or what his plans were.

Kabila’s long-expected return is seen as controversial, with some analysts saying his presence in Goma could worsen tensions between the rebels and the Congolese government, especially amid ongoing efforts to negotiate a ceasefire.

Representatives of Congo’s government and M23 met in Qatar earlier this month as the Gulf Arab state leads renewed efforts to get both parties to return to dialogue and recommit themselves to a peace deal they each accuse the other of violating.

Christian Moleka, a political scientist at the Congolese think tank Dypol, said it was likely to have a “detonating effect on Congolese politics,” and strengthen the accusations by “those who believe that there is a connection between him and the M23 rebellion.”

Congolese President Felix Tshisekedi last year accused Kabila of backing the rebels and “preparing an insurrection” with them, a claim Kabila denies.

Kabila led Congo from 2011 to 2019, taking office at the age of 29 and extending his mandate by delaying elections for two years after his term was ended in 2017. His father, former President Laurent Kabila, was assassinated in 2001.

After leaving Congo, Kabila lived in South Africa and other African countries.

Iran on Friday sought support from Russia over a possible deal with Washington over Tehran’s rapidly advancing nuclear program, ahead of a second round of talks this weekend in Rome.

Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said he briefed his Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov, on the first round of talks in Oman last week and praised Russia’s role in Iran’s 2015 nuclear deal with world powers that led to lifting of sanctions in return for Tehran’s cap on its nuclear activities.

“We are hopeful, and we expect Russia to continue its supportive role in any new agreement,” Araghchi said in a joint news conference with Lavrov in Moscow.

The 2015 nuclear deal collapsed with Trump’s unilateral withdrawal while Iran abandoned all limits on its nuclear program, and enriches uranium to up to 60% purity — near weapons-grade levels of 90%.

Lavrov said Russia was ready to mediate and assist in the nuclear talks.

“We are ready to help, mediate and play any role that, from Iran’s point of view, will be useful and that will be acceptable to the United States,” Lavrov said. “We proceed from the fact that the only option for an agreement, as the (Iranian) minister just said, is an agreement exclusively on nuclear issues.”

Lavrov said Araghchi met with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday in talks that “emphasized the unprecedented dynamics of (the) political dialogue” between Moscow and Tehran. He did not give details, beyond saying Putin was “very pleased” with the talks.

Araghchi said he gave Putin a message from Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has a final say on all state matters in Iran. He did not elaborate.

In Paris, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio expressed hope that talks with Iran are ″fruitful, and that they’re that they can lead to something. We would all prefer a peaceful resolution and a lasting one.″

Rubio met with British, French and German officials in Paris and pressed them to maintain sanctions against Iran instead of allowing them to run out.

″We should all anticipate, based on the public comments yesterday, that they’re about to get a report from the IAEA that says not just is Iran out of compliance, but Iran is dangerously close to a weapon, closer than they’ve ever been,” Rubio said.

He added: “And then they (the Europeans) are going to have to make a decision about whether they want to reimpose these sanctions. And if Iran is out of compliance, they have to reimpose the sanctions.″

Rwanda has agreed to give safe passage to Southern African Development Community (SADC) forces. This was confirmed by the Rwandan Minister for Foreign Affairs Olivier Nduhungirehe who confirmed this was at the request of SADC who requested to use the eastern African territory as they exit the war-ravaged eastern Congo.

Kigali has in the past been critical of the SADC forces positioned in Congo straining its relations with South Africa.

The SADC forces have suffered a number of casualties in the previous months from the ongoing war.

The force of several thousand peacekeeping troops from South Africa, Malawi and Tanzania had been sent to eastern Congo by the SADC in 2023 to help the Congolese government pacify a mineral-rich region plagued by various insurgencies.

The troops failed to stop the lightning assaults starting in January by the Rwanda-backed M23 rebels that have claimed several key cities and that left several peacekeepers dead, eroding support for the mission in the donor countries.

The SADC leadership announced their withdrawal earlier this month. The SADC mission was part of a myriad of forces operating in the mineral-rich region plagued by decades of armed violence.

They include Congolese government soldiers, foreign mercenaries, a United Nations peacekeeping force and more than 100 groups that are fighting for power, land and valuable mineral resources.

Others try to defend their communities. Some armed groups have been accused of mass killings targeting ethnic groups.

The M23 rebels are supported by about 4,000 troops from neighboring Rwanda, according to U.N. experts, and at times have vowed to march as far as Congo’s capital, Kinshasa, over 1,000 miles away.

Rwanda has rejected charges, including by the Congolese government and U.N experts, that it backs M23 in eastern Congo, a region that is now one of the world’s largest humanitarian crises with more than 7 million people displaced.

The withdrawal of SADC troops comes after the M23 took control of eastern Congo’s main city of Goma and seized the second largest city, Bukavu, in offensives over the past two months.

Fourteen South African soldiers, and at least three from Malawi, were killed in January in the fighting. The United Nations later evacuated a group of critically injured South African.