(BRUSSELS) - UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon is in favour of sending an European force to embattled eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, while waiting for reinforcements of UN peacekeepers to arrive there, Belgium's foreign minister said Sunday.

The deployment of an additional 3,000 UN peacekeepers to DR Congo "is going to take some time, and for that reason the UN hopes that a European military force could come and fill in the gap during this period," Karel De Gucht told Belgium's VRT television.

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