NAIROBI (Reuters) – Eastern Congo rebels and the government made progress and will meet again soon after the first face-to-face talks to defuse tension that has threatened to trigger another regional war, a mediator said on Tuesday.

Diplomats had cautiously welcomed the two days of talks in Nairobi, even though neither Congolese President Joseph Kabila nor General Laurent Nkunda, head of the rebel National Congress for the Defense of the People (CNDP), took part.
""They have made progress in their talks and they will continue,"" Olusegun Obasanjo, a former Nigerian president who is UN special envoy for the conflict in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo, told reporters.
The talks were aimed at ending fighting in Congo's North Kivu province between the military and Nkunda's Tutsi rebels that has displaced a quarter of a million people since August.
Obasanjo said substantive discussions would take place before Christmas. He said no date or venue had been decided.
""The doors are not closed,"" he added, saying that ""other parties"" were welcome to join the talks. He did not elaborate.
At the weekend, the Kinshasa government invited some 20 other armed groups to the UN-hosted talks -- but the CNDP said it would not sit down with other insurgents. No other rebel groups turned up, and the two delegations held two days of private meetings.
The CNDP declared a ceasefire after reaching the gates of North Kivu's provincial capital Goma in late October. The truce has been generally respected by both the rebels and the army, leading to more than a month of relative calm in the area.
But clashes continue between Nkunda's fighters, Mai Mai militia and Rwandan Hutu rebels, who roam a region rich in gold, diamonds, coltan and tin and who often support Kabila's weak and chaotic army.
Congo and Rwanda agreed last week to disband a Rwandan Hutu militia, the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), in eastern Congo. Congo's 1998-2003 war sucked in six neighboring armies and caused more than 5 million deaths.
The FDLR includes in its ranks perpetrators of the 1994 genocide of Tutsis by Hutus in neighboring Rwanda. Congo accuses Nkunda of receiving support from the Tutsi-led Rwandan government of President Paul Kagame.
The United Nations has a 17,000-strong peacekeeping mission in Congo, known as MONUC, and has asked for an EU ""bridging force"" to reinforce it until 3,000 more UN troops and police arrive next year. EU ministers are split on how to respond.
French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said in Paris that it was ""out of the question"" for France to send combat troops to Congo to help MONUC because the conflict zone is too close to Rwanda, further dimming hopes that an EU force can be put together to intervene quickly.
Kouchner did not exclude French participation in a possible EU force, but said it would have to be in a non-combat role.
France and Rwanda have extremely tense relations because of mutual accusations of a role in the 1994 Rwandan genocide.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Friday repeated a call for an EU bridging force, saying it may take up to six months to deploy some 3,000 reinforcements for MONUC.
Hiroute Guebre Sellassie, head of MONUC's regional office in Goma, said at the U.N. headquarters in New York that MONUC was counting on Europe to come through with a bridging force.
Without one, MONUC would have to live with large areas of vulnerability for six months until the reinforcements arrive.
""The idea of a bridging force originally came from Europe and we would expect them to do something about it,"" she told Reuters. ""This is not a luxury. MONUC needs those forces.""