By Kari Barber

GOMA, Congo, Dec 27 (Reuters) - Congo's authorities have postponed until Jan. 6 a peace conference aimed at ending conflict in the east between government forces and warring rebel and militia groups, the organisers said on Thursday.

The meeting on peace and security in the North and South Kivu provinces of Democratic Republic of Congo was being organised by the country's Interior Ministry and National Assembly and had been scheduled to start on Thursday.

But officials said the conference in the North Kivu provincial capital Goma would now begin in earnest on Jan. 6 to allow more time for preparation and for invitations to be sent to participants, including rebel Tutsi General Laurent Nkunda.

"We have to prepare ... then the important work will begin on the 6th (of January) and end the 14th," said Apollinaire Malu Malu, the head of Congo's independent electoral commission, who is coordinating the peace conference.

President Joseph Kabila is under pressure from the United Nations and the United States to find a political solution to end years of fighting in the Kivus involving government troops, Tutsi insurgents, Rwandan Hutu rebels and Mai Mai militia.

Despite the end of Congo's 1998-2003 war, conflict in the east of the vast, mineral-rich former Belgian colony has continued, forcing hundreds of thousands of civilians from their homes in the Kivus and causing renewed humanitarian suffering.

Nkunda, who says his fighters are defending Congo's Tutsi ethnic minority against FDLR Hutu rebels involved in Rwanda's 1994 genocide, has recently managed to push back an army offensive aimed at trying to disarm his men by force.

Malu Malu said Nkunda and his National Council for the Defence of the People (CNDP) group would be invited to the Goma conference. ""Everyone is invited to this conference," he said.

Nkunda's military commander, Bwambale Kakolele, said the CNDP was ready to attend the meeting, but had not yet received a formal invitation.

"We didn't get the invitation, but we expect to receive it. If we get an invitation we will be there because we want peace," Kakolele told Reuters by telephone.

"We will sit together with the government and we will find answers to this problem," he added.

Kakolele said Nkunda's group was asking the international community to guarantee security so rebel delegates, which could include Nkunda and his top commanders, could attend safely.

Foreign diplomatic envoys, including U.S. State Department Special Envoy Tim Shortley, met in Goma earlier this month and agreed to create a task force to follow the implementation of a November agreement that seeks to pacify Congo's east.

Under that deal reached in Nairobi, Congolese and Rwandan foreign ministers agreed that Congo's army would forcibly disarm the Rwandan Hutu rebels operating in the east, while Rwanda's Tutsi-led government would seal the border to prevent Nkunda's forces receiving assistance. (Editing by Pascal Fletcher and Mary Gabriel)

AlertNet news is provided by