UNITED NATIONS, Nov 21 (Reuters) - The U.N. Security Council on Wednesday welcomed a deal signed by Congo and Rwanda to forcibly disarm Rwandan Hutu rebels in Congo in an effort to reduce tensions between the central African neighbors.

The Hutu rebels, including former Rwandan soldiers (ex-FAR) and members of the Interahamwe militia, are among several armed groups continuing to destabilize eastern Democratic Republic of Congo even after the end of a broader 1998-2003 war.

More than 370,000 people have fled fighting between Congolese government soldiers, Tutsi-dominated insurgents and Rwandan Hutu rebels -- accused by Kigali of involvement in Rwanda's 1994 genocide -- since the start of the year.

Under the terms of the deal signed in Nairobi this month, Congo will prepare a detailed plan by Dec. 1, with the backing of a U.N. peacekeeping mission, to disarm the rebels.

Kigali promised to share with Congo and the United Nations a list of individuals it accuses of orchestrating the 1994 genocide, in which an estimated 800,000 Rwandan Tutsis and moderate Hutus were massacred.

The U.N. Security Council said in a statement the agreement was "an important milestone towards a definitive settlement of the problem of illegal armed groups in the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of the Congo."

The statement said illegal armed groups, including a Tutsi militia led by renegade General Laurent Nkunda and Hutu rebels now known as the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), were the root cause of conflict in eastern Congo and a threat to regional stability.

"The council reiterates its demand that these groups lay down their arms and engage voluntarily and without preconditions in their demobilization, repatriation, resettlement and reintegration as appropriate," it said.

(Reporting by Claudia Parsons; Editing by Jackie Frank)

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