KINSHASA, Congo (AP) - The U.N. Security Council on Saturday praised the Congolese president’s vision for the country’s future and urged a key rebel group to disarm and talk to the president in order to bring peace to the war-ravaged region.

During an hour-long meeting with Joseph Kabila at the president’s palace, Congo’s leader told council members that the military situation in the east is already improving, France’s U.N. Ambassador Jean-Maurice Ripert said.

"Our feeling - and the feeling of the president - was that it was improving because every day you have some militias who are surrendering. So, the process is giving good signs, and the improvement of the relationship with both Uganda and Rwanda certainly will help," Ripert said.

The ambassador, who is leading the council visit to Congo, said Kabila is putting all his weight behind a Security Council resolution that specifically calls on the FDLR to disar

The Democratic Front for the Liberation of Rwanda, known by its French acronym FDLR, is an extremist Hutu militia accused of orchestrating the 1994 genocide of 500,000 Tutsis in Rwanda. The militia fled to the forested hills of eastern Congo after being chased out of neighboring Rwanda and has set up bases in the remote jungle.

The militia is accused of razing villages and terrorizing the local population. Its continued presence in eastern Congo has given rise to countermilitias, like the brutal forces of Laurent Nkunda, an ethnic Tutsi warlord whose popularity is derived from his claim of protecting villagers from the FDLR.

The two armed groups and several other smaller militias are at war now over the forested area, a conflict that has caused a mass exodus of villagers from their homes.

The Security Council is often highly critical of governments and individuals, and it is rare for its members to talk about a leader having "vision."

"I was struck by the fact that he certainly is a politician who has a vision for his country," Ripert said. "His vision is a vision of improving the security and the first step in the short-term (is) to get the rebel groups to disarm, to get the rebel groups to leave the country. They don’t belong to the country."

Ripert added that Kabila has agreed to meet to talk to the FDLR, a crucial first step