LRA LEADER IN SURRENDER TALKS

The delegation’s arrival follows a breakthrough in negotiations during a summit between the Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, the British prime minister David Cameron and his Pakistani counterpart, Nawaz Sharif.Karzai formed the Afghan High Peace Council in 2010 to pursue a negotiated peace with the Taliban, who have been leading an insurgency since being ousted from power by US-led forces in 2001.Baradar is a long-time friend of the Taliban leader, Mullah Omar, and Afghanistan believes he is still powerful enough to persuade fighters to lay down their weapons and make peace.He was the Taliban's deputy leader and one of their most influential commanders until he was arrested in Pakistan in 2010.Pakistan announced his release last month but he remains in the country under close supervision.Afghanistan has called for Baradar's release for years. His captivity in Pakistan has been a source of tension as anxiety grows ahead of the withdrawal of most US-led troops from Afghanistan, planned for the end of next year.Also on Wednesday, the African Union's special envoy on the LRA, Francisco Madeira, told the UN Security Council he had seen reports that Kony was suffering from a "serious, uncharacterized illness".In April the Ugandan army suspended a search for Kony in the CAR, blaming "hostility" from the government formed when rebel forces took power there.Joseph Kony and the estimated 200-500 fighters of his Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) have waged war in Uganda and the region for more than two decades.He claims the LRA's mission is to install a government in Uganda based on the Biblical Ten Commandments.But his rebels have terrorised large swathes of the Democratic Republic of Congo, South Sudan and the CAR and he is wanted by the International Criminal Court accused of rape, mutilation and murder of civilians, as well as forcibly recruiting children to serve as soldiers and sex slaves.