The United States is open to exploring critical minerals partnerships with Congo, the State Department said in a statement to Reuters on Sunday, after a Congolese senator contacted U.S. officials to pitch a minerals-for-security deal.

Since January, however, the rapid conquest and occupation of a huge area of the Democratic Republic of Congo by Rwanda and the M23 rebel group it supports has raised concerns that the principle may now be endangered.

A conflict that has simmered in Democratic Republic of Congo’s eastern borderlands for years is set to erupt into a wider regional war.

Congo says over 7,000 people have died this year as Rwanda-backed M23 rebels have captured unprecedented amounts of territory in its mineral-rich eastern region.

Disease is rampant, and children as young as 4 are being forced to work in mines.The Democratic Republic of Congo is 95% Christian, yet the faithful are being targeted by jihadists. Just last month, Islamist ADF terrorists,

Rwanda-backed M23 rebels are trying to demonstrate they can restore order in the city and other localities they control in eastern Congo as they work to set up their own administration. That effort has included retraining hundreds of Congolese police officers to work under M23's authority.

Ottawa will suspend government deals with Rwanda, trade missions and export permits for Canadian controlled goods and technologies to Rwanda

U.K. authorities are punishing Rwanda over its support of the rebels who now control two major cities in eastern Congo.

Late on Monday, Canada announced it had suspended the issuance of permits for the export of controlled goods and technologies to Rwanda, as well as suspending pursuing new government-to-government business and trade missions with Rwanda, and support to private-sector business development activities.

Escalating attacks have struck hospitals and other civilian infrastructure in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo during the ongoing anti-government assault by the armed group M23, the UN's humanitarian agency said.

The UK's decision to suspend some aid to Rwanda is "punitive", authorities in the East African country have said. In a statement, the UK said it was against Rwanda's support for the M23, a rebel group that has captured swathes of eastern Democratic Republic of Congo in a deadly uprising.

The president of the Democratic Republic of Congo is pitching the U.S. and Europe on a minerals deal as the White House prepares to sign a similar pact with