By Tim Cocks

KAMPALA, March 12 (Reuters) - The new U.N. envoy for Uganda's conflict met the fugitive Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) rebel leader Joseph Kony at his jungle hideout in a bid to restart stalled peace talks, Kony's deputy said on Monday.

Former Mozambique President Joaquim Chissano flew with Ugandan government officials for the talks in northeastern Democratic Republic of Congo on Sunday, Vincent Otti, the LRA's second-in-command, told Reuters by satellite telephone.

"They came yesterday," Otti said, adding that Chissano was accompanied by south Sudan's Vice President Riek Machar, the head of the Ugandan government's peace team, Internal Affairs Minister Ruhakana Rugunda, and Ugandan members of parliament.

Machar is the chief mediator at stop-start peace talks between the internationally wanted rebels and Uganda's government that began in July in southern Sudan's capital Juba.

One group of LRA guerrillas is in south Sudan, but the main force led by Kony -- who is wanted for war crimes by the International Criminal Court (ICC) -- has stayed hidden in DRC.

Otti gave no details of Chissano's meeting with Kony.

"It was positive. ... We told them what we wanted, and we are waiting for a response," he said, without elaborating.

CHISSANO 'CIRCUMSPECT'

A U.N. official said Chissano was unlikely to comment.

"Kony met Chissano in the bush," the spokesman said. "Chissano's delegation want to remain circumspect. I don't believe they will be making public statements."

A truce in August raised hopes of ending 20 years of war that have killed tens of thousands of people and uprooted 1.7 million more in northern Uganda. But it expired in February.

A month earlier, LRA delegates walked out of the Juba talks saying they feared for their safety after Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir threatened to "get rid" of the rebels from Sudan.

They demanded a new venue be found in another country.

Analysts say the LRA negotiators -- most of them rebel sympathisers from the Ugandan Diaspora -- are pushing a political agenda in which the commanders have little interest.

By meeting the LRA bosses directly, Chissano -- who began his posting as U.N. envoy for the war in January -- could be trying to cut out the middlemen to spur the talks, they say.

But some fear the top LRA leaders will never make peace with the government until the ICC drops its indictments against them.

In January, Chissano said the matter of the arrest warrants was between The Hague-based court and Uganda's government.

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