The Democratic Republic of the Congo has accused the EU of “an obvious double standard” for maintaining a minerals deal with Rwanda to supply Europe’s hi-tech industries when it deployed a far-wider sanctions regime in response to the war in Ukraine.

Thérèse Kayikwamba Wagner, the DRC foreign minister, urged the EU to levy much stronger sanctions against Rwanda, which has fuelled the conflict in eastern DRC, describing the bloc’s response to violations of DRC territory as “very timid”.

Referencing the EU’s response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, she said: “It is an obvious double standard – I want to be constructive here – that makes us curious and inquisitive about understanding why the EU again struggles so much to take action.”

The DRC and Rwanda signed a peace deal in June, brokered by the US and Qatar, aiming to end the decades-old conflict, which escalated early this year when the Rwanda-backed M23 rebel group seized swathes of DRC territory, including two key cities. But deadly attacks on civilians have continued and a deadline to reach a peace agreement was missed in August.

Last year a group of UN experts said up to 4,000 Rwandan troops were fighting alongside M23 and that the Rwandan military was in “de facto control of M23 operations”. Rwanda has long denied backing M23 and says its forces act in self-defence.

An internally displaced family loads belongings on to a motorbike as they leave a camp in Bulengo, DRC. Photograph: Jospin Mwisha/AFP/Getty Images

The DRC president, Félix Tshisekedi, on Thursday appealed to his Rwandan counterpart, Paul Kagame, to stop supporting militants in the DRC at a Brussels event attended by both leaders, drawing a rebuke from Kigali that he was “completely mistaken” about the roots of the conflict.

Saying he was stretching out his hand to make peace, Tshisekedi told Kagame: “This requires you to order the M23 troops supported by your country to stop this escalation, which has already caused enough deaths.”

The Rwandan foreign minister, Olivier Nduhungirehe, later responded on X, saying Tshisekedi was “completely mistaken” and accusing him of abusing the platform at the Brussels event.

Speaking before the meeting, Wagner drew parallels between Rwanda’s violation of DRC territory and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The EU had adopted a catalogue of sanctions against Russia, but made only “very timid progress” over the conflict in eastern DRC.

The eastern DRC, a region bordering Rwanda with abundant natural resources but plagued by non-state armed groups, has suffered extreme violence for more than three decades.

The EU has placed sanctions on 32 people and two entities – a militant group and a Rwandan gold refiner dealing in illegal supplies of the metal – for their role in fuelling the conflict. Setting out justifications for these sanctions, the EU said the Rwandan Defence Force in eastern DRC had violated the DRC’s territory and “sustains the armed conflict … [and is] also responsible for serious human rights abuses, including collective punishment”.

Despite this finding of human rights abuses by the Rwandan army in the DRC, the European Commission has brushed off calls to suspend a 2024 minerals deal with Kigali, which is intended to boost the supply of raw materials to power Europe’s electric car batteries and microchips.

Wagner said the memorandum of understanding with Rwanda was “void of any credibility in a context where it has been established that Rwanda has been siphoning off Congolese resources” extracted under brutal conditions of forced labour, involving children.

The US and many others have raised concerns about illegal trade in gold and tantalum in eastern Congo, extracted via forced labour, then trafficked to Rwanda for export to benefit armed groups.

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Wagner said it was up to the EU whether it chose to suspend or annul the agreement “but silence is probably the least constructive [response] and the most perplexing one”.

The conflict in eastern DRC is one of the seven wars Donald Trump claims to have ended, although between June and the end of September the UN reported 1,087 people had been killed. It remains one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises, with more than 7.8 million people internally displaced in eastern DRC and 28 million facing food insecurity, including 4 million at emergency levels, according to the UN.

As the DRC’s chief diplomat, Wagner signed the agreement with Rwanda in the White House in June, which also aims to give the US greater access to Congolese natural resources.

Thérèse Kayikwamba Wagner (right) at the White House in June, where a deal was signed that includes giving the US greater access to Congolese natural resources. Photograph: Ken Cedeno/Reuters

She said the US was still engaged in the peace process and she rejected suggestions that Trump’s sole motivation was the DRC’s vast mineral wealth, while adding: “It is just a reality … that this potential is currently untapped.”

She was in Brussels to take part in a conference on the global gateway, Europe’s lower-budget answer to the Chinese belt and road initiative, which aims to finance infrastructure projects around the world.

The European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, opened the conference on Thursday, saying the EU wanted “partnerships based on common interests and respect for sovereignty”. She highlighted the Lobito corridor – rail, road and water transport links – connecting the mineral heartlands of the DRC and Zambia to Angola’s Atlantic coast.

Wagner said the EU and DRC had a strong foundation in the Lobito project, but “a lot has been overshadowed by the situation in eastern DRC”.