The Democratic Republic of Congo must hold a long-delayed election to replace President Joseph Kabila by the end of 2018 or the vote will lose international support, the US ambassador to the UN said on Friday.
Repeated delays to the poll, originally scheduled for late 2016, have fueled surging political tensions in the Central African nation.
US envoy Nikki Haley said this had raised fears the country could slip back to the wars of the turn of the century that killed millions.
Haley, who met with the Congolese electoral commission during a visit to Kinshasa, said that she had passed on a message that “these elections must take place in 2018 or there will be no support for the electoral process”.
The electoral commission had said earlier this month that the vote to replace Kabila could not take place until April 2019 at the earliest, leading the opposition to warn that the population would “take matters into its own hands”.
Halyey said: “The US will not support anything in 2019. The international community will not support anything in 2019.”
Haley, who is wrapping up a week-long trip to Ethiopia, South Sudan and Congo, was scheduled to meet Kabila later on Friday.
Kabila has ruled Congo since his father’s assassination in 2001.