Nairobi — The Democratic Republic of the Congo's embattled President Joseph Kabila will meet Thursday with his Rwandan counterpart Paul Kagame in a one-on-one high summit, Rwandan and Congolese officials announced Wednesday.

It is the first time the two have met publicly since the end of 2008, when the countries agreed behind closed curtains to a massive joint-military operation that took place the following January. According to a report in Rwanda's local The New Times, it will be the first time Kagame has met with a Congolese president in a bilateral arrangement since 1998, when Kabila's father, Laurent, was president.

President Kagame's press office confirmed the meeting, but said a time and location had not yet been scheduled.

Tiny Rwanda and gargantuan Congo have lived in a state of icy - and disproportionate - existence, where Rwanda's powerful, highly-disciplined army has been used to leverage policy with its vast, but weak, neighbour. In 1996, and again in 1998, Rwanda invaded Congo in retaliation to Kinshasa's support for Hutu extremists hiding out in the east of the country.

Rwandan troops entered Congo again, this time by invitation, in early January and as the humanitarian situation in Congo has worsened, there are calls for them to return again.

At the end of last month, President Kagame reiterated enthusiastically Rwanda's offer to send troops back across the borders, where a bevy of militias, and the minerals beneath that they feast on, await. In mid-April, a consortium of Congolese senators and church pastors from across the country petitioned Rwanda to return to the country.

Rwanda and Congo's foreign ministers met Wednesday near the borders in the town of Gisenyi to discuss the presidential summit, where peace and security issues, according to Rwanda's foreign ministry, will be a top priority.

Since the January military operations, formal relations between Rwanda and Congo have bloomed. Energy projects have been implemented and embassies in both capitals have been reopened.

Relations were first severed after the Rwandan genocide in 1994, when millions of refugees - genocidal killers within the pack - fled to Congo. Since then they have stayed, stirred, and stressed Rwanda's security. The Kagame administration, while heralding reconciliation at home, has made the Hutu extremists in Congo its major target. In the past, Rwanda had sponsored proxy militia to buffer their enemies, but in the last six month devastation has returned to eastern Congo.

The United States' Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will be visiting Congo next week in its strongest bid to date to bring peace to the war-torn region.