France, Feb. 5 -- Cameroon's government displayed an "openness" towards dialogue for solving the country's ongoing Anglophone crisis, during a visit by the Vatican's number two earlier this week, according to a top church official from the Anglophone regions.

"There is a kind of openness for dialogue," said Andrew Nkea, Archbishop of Bamenda. "But how this is going to come about, I think we must also be discreet in the way we handle those things."

Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vatican's secretary of state, completed a visit to Cameroon on Wednesday, after a five-day trip during which he met President Paul Biya and held mass in Bamenda, the capital of the North West Region.

Fighting between armed separatists and Cameroon's military conti...