Rwanda and Zambia have agreed to jointly identify and arrest 1994 genocide suspects who may be living in Zambia as refugees, the state ZANIS news agency reported on Tuesday.

The agreement was reached during talks in Kigali between Rwandan President Paul Kagame and President Rupiah Banda of Zambia on Monday, the news agency quoted Foreign Minister Kabinga Pande as saying.

"The process of identifying genocide suspects will be carried out in close collaboration between the ministries of justice of Zambia and Rwanda," Pande said.

The head of the Rwandan unit tracking genocide suspects, Bosco Mutangana, said last November that Zambia, Malawi and Mozambique were not willing to extradite genocide suspects.

Mutangana was quoted as saying hundreds of fugitives were living in southern Africa despite diplomatic attempts to have them extradited to face prosecution.

He said authorities in all three nations had the names and addresses of the suspects but were apparently not willing to have them extradited.

Zambia had denied the report, saying it had offered vital information to the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda directly and through the International Committee on the Great Lakes region, to ensure that genocide suspects were handed over to prosecutors.

(REUTERS)