PRESIDENT Rupiah Banda yesterday held a closed door meeting with Tanzania's former president Benjamin Mkapa at State House where they discussed the political and security situation in the Great Lakes Region(GLR).

According to a statement released by the President's Special Assistant for Press and Public Relations Dickson Jere, Mr Mkapa who is one of the mediators in the GLR, arrived in Zambia yesterday morning to brief President Banda on the political and security situation in the region ahead of the African Heads of State and Government Summit in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia next month.

President Banda is the current Chairperson of the International Conference on the(ICGLR) while, Mr Mkapa and former Nigerian president Olusegun Obasanjo are the two mediators appointed to speaheard the peace process in the region.

Mr Mkapa said the political and security situation in the GLR had normalised in some of the countries but that, there were still many challenges which needed to be addressed in order to have peace and stability in the entire region.

President Banda thanked Mr Mkapa for the detailed brief presented to him, which he said was useful in handling the conflicts in the region.