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.

Peace negotiations began mid-2006 between the government and the LRA, but the rebels are hesitant to sign the final peace treaty.

They say that the International Criminal Court (ICC) should first withdraw arrest warrants it issued in 2005 for five rebel leaders, including Kony, for crimes against humanity.

The court in The Hague wants the guerrilla commanders to be tried for rape, murder, abductions, torture and conscription of children into war. The rebels want Museveni to get the ICC to drop the warrants.

The rebellion has left thousands of civilians dead, mutilated and tens of thousands of children abducted by the LRA who forced them to fight and commit atrocities.

Nearly two million civilians have been displaced from their homes by the conflict. (dpa)