A CAR spokesperson claimed that Kony was being urged to surrender, but the U.S. remains doubtful as to whether this is true. (infomatique/Flickr)

Gaston Mackouzangba, a Central African Republic (CAR) government spokesperson said on Wednesday that Ugandan warlord Joseph Kony was in talks with the CAR to surrender, but an official with the U.S. State Department, Michael Poffenberger, said today that they were doubtful as to whether this was true, according to BBC News.

Poffenberger stated that while the U.S. were aware of the fact that CAR officials were in contact with a LRA group that wanted to surrender, there was "little reason to believe that Joseph Kony is part of this group".

Furthermore, Francisco Mediera, the African Union envoy on the LRA told the UN Security Council on Wednesday that Kony was seriously ill.

The U.S. has put up a reward of up to $5 million for leads that would result in his arrest. Kony was close to signing a peace deal 5 years ago, but refused to do so unless the International Criminal Court dropped its arrest warrant.

Kony's crimes include rape, the murder and mutilation of civilians, and forcing children to work for him as soldiers and sex slaves, and was the focus of the 30-minute documentary Kony 2012 created by Invisible Children, that has been viewed over 116 million times on YouTube and Vimeo combined.

Incidentally, the co-founder and chief creative officer at Invisible Children, Jason Russell, was at USC on Tuesday to talk about the Kony 2012 campaign and the public indecency scandal he was involved in a little over a year ago.

Contact Executive Producer Adi here, or follow him on Twitter.