Kampala  - Ugandan president Yoweri Museveni on Tuesday said that the massacre of up to 900 civilians by the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) in the north-east of the Democratic Republic of Congo was a sacrifice for future peace in their country.

"Sacrifices are paid by people in bad situations," Museveni told a press conference. "You can talk of 900 people who died but how about those who died due to the high infant mortality rate in the area when the LRA was there?"

Kampala  - Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni has agreed to meet directly with the head of the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) in a bid to salvage faltering talks aimed at bringing an end a long-running civil war, a government newspaper reported Tuesday.

Reclusive guerrilla commander Joseph Kony, who is currently holed up in the jungles of the north-east of the Democratic Republic of Congo, declined to sign the draft peace agreement on November 29 and has now given other conditions including that he should have direct talks with the Ugandan leader.

"Museveni said he is willing to have direct talks with Kony anytime," The New Vision newspaper quoted the deputy leader of the government peace team, Henry Okello Oryem, as saying.