(Updates with quotes, details, background)

By Joe Bavier

KINSHASA, Jan 25 (Reuters) - Congo's government has not renewed an arrest warrant for war crimes against rebel General Laurent Nkunda and he can gain amnesty under a peace deal signed with his insurgent group this week, officials said on Friday.

This clarification appeared to eliminate a potential obstacle to successful implementation of the ceasefire pact signed on Wednesday between Democratic Republic of Congo's government and warring eastern rebel and militia factions.

The accord, hailed by diplomats and analysts as the best chance in years of achieving peace in Congo's conflict-torn east, offers a limited amnesty covering acts of war and insurgency to the rebel and militia fighters involved. But it does not cover war crimes, crimes against humanity or genocide.

"Concerning acts of war and insurgency, Nkunda can be amnestied, of course," Vital Kamerhe, spokesman for the eastern peace conference which drafted Wednesday's deal, told Reuters.

Wednesday's peace deal seeks to end a horrific cycle of killings, looting and rape, inflicted by rebel groups and militias and marauding government soldiers, that has continued in Congo's east despite the formal end of a 1998-2003 war.

President Joseph Kabila's government had previously said Nkunda was the subject of an arrest warrant for war crimes allegedly committed when his fighters briefly occupied the eastern city of Bukavu in 2004, when he launched his revolt.

But a member of the government delegation that helped negotiate the peace deal told Reuters on Friday this war crimes arrest warrant against the rebel chief had not been renewed.

"An arrest warrant must be renewed every three months and that has never been done," he said, asking not to be named.

"It is absolutely true that the warrant has expired," said Anneke Van Woudenberg, a senior researcher for New York-based Human Rights Watch and a leading Congo expert.

She added that a formal government investigation into the 2004 incidents at Bukavu had never been carried out, and without this an arrest warrant could not be meaningfully sustained.

Kamerhe said he had not been informed of any ongoing investigation against Nkunda for war crimes. This meant the rebel warlord could benefit from the limited amnesty offered under the terms of the peace deal.

But Kamerhe added that under Congolese law, prosecutors could in the future still pursue any former or active combatants, whether they were insurgents, militiamen or government soldiers, accused of participating in war crimes, crimes against humanity or genocide.

Nevertheless, a source close to the negotiations said Nkunda would be informed in writing by the state prosecutor that the previous war crimes warrant against him had not been renewed.

Long after Congo's wider 1998-2003 war ended, fighting has raged on in the east, adding to a humanitarian catastrophe that has caused more deaths -- 5.4 million since 1998 -- than any other conflict since World War Two, relief experts say. (Writing by Pascal Fletcher; Editing by Ibon Villelabeitia)

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