Government, opposition and civil society leaders resumed talks in  Uganda on December 28, 2015.

World attention has now focused on Uganda’s presidential palace in Entebbe, just outside the capital Kampala where rival faction leaders in Burundi started meeting yesterday, December 28, 2015 in another round of peace talks designed to solve the crisis in the country.

Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni who is acting as the East African regional mediator in the Burundian crisis chaired the opening ceremony of the resumed long-stalled negotiations. “I really appeal to you, the two sides, to sit down and have a political solution so that you save the people from the suffering. You have no excuse not to sit down and quickly resolve... these are clear things, you can meet one afternoon and agree,"  Mail Online quoted Museveni as having told the respective delegation leaders. Reports say the Uganda talks are expected to only lay the groundwork for longer negotiations in January 2016 in the northern Tanzanian town of Arusha.

The resumption of talks in Uganda signaled some faint hopes for a solution to the violence in Burundi judging from the caliber of representatives of the factions.  Burundi’s Foreign Minister Alain-Aime Nyamitwe is leading the government delegation. The opposition delegates include members of CNARED, a coalition that presents itself as upholding the Arusha peace agreement that ended more than a decade of civil war in 2006.

The spokesperson of CNARED, Pancrace Cimpaye said, "CNARED requires above all an immediate end to the massacres, because we cannot negotiate while people are about to be killed," and further called for the "immediate deployment" of the proposed AU force. The African Union has said it will send in a 5,000-strong force to halt the violence, despite Burundi's government calling the proposed peacekeeping mission an "invasion force". Leading civil society members, including exiled human rights activist Pierre-Claver Mbonimpa and a number of religious leaders, are also taking part in the negotiations.

The East African Community (EAC) bloc is championing the peace negotiations. It is for this reason that its Secretary General, Richard Sezibera declared that, "Today, Burundi is at crossroads: either the leaders and people of Burundi will invest in the peace, security, stability and prosperity that they so richly deserve, or with their eyes firmly fixed on the rear driving mirror they will continue to hurtle towards violence, political intolerance and possible civil war."