Hun Sen to visit beleaguered East European nation, exchange ambassadors
A Cambodian soldier probes for mines in a field at the Training and Mine Unexploded Ordnance Clearance Center in Oudong, some 40 kilometers north of Phnom Penh on Nov. 27, 2011. Cambodia has offered demining assistance to Ukraine. (Photo: AFP)
Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen will visit Ukraine at “an appropriate time” after reaching an agreement with his counterpart Volodymyr Zelenskyy to send a team of deminers to the war-torn country and exchange ambassadors.
The agreements were reached during an online meeting late on Nov 1 with Hun Sen offering to use his position as this year’s chair of the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) to mediate talks between Russia and Ukraine during upcoming summits in Phnom Penh.
Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba will also visit Cambodia for the annual ASEAN and East Asian leaders’ summit in mid-November which includes 11 dialogue partners, among others.
United States President Joe Biden has confirmed he will attend; however, Russian President Vladimir Putin has yet to respond to the invitation.
“Cambodia is ready to dispatch deminers to help train Ukraine’s deminers”
A government statement said Hun Sen, “expressed concern over the recent attacks on Kiev and other cities in Ukraine, which have claimed many deaths, injuries and severe damage to civilian infrastructure, power outages and water shortages, as well as serious energy and food crises.”
It also said Hun Sen had agreed to an “invitation to pay a visit to Ukraine at a suitable time” and that, “with the collaboration with Japan, Cambodia is ready to dispatch deminers to help train Ukraine’s deminers.”
Cambodia has run an extensive demining operation since a 30-year war ended in 1998 in cooperation with Western countries and the United Nations Development Programme and hopes to be free of land mines and explosive remnants of war by 2025.
Russia is also an old Cold War ally of Cambodia.
However, Hun Sen has opposed Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and last month it co-sponsored a United Nations resolution that condemned Moscow’s annexation of four Ukrainian regions.
“President Zelenskyy expressed thanks and welcomed Cambodia’s good gesture to provide assistance to Ukraine in demining. Zelenskyy also agreed on the premier’s proposal to appoint the two countries’ ambassadors,” the semi-official Fresh News added.
“Attitudes to the junta are hardening”
The ASEAN summits will also serve as a prelude to the Group of 20 meeting in Bali and the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Bangkok.
All meetings will be held within 10 days in Southeast Asia where leaders are expected to focus on issues ranging from the poor state of the global economy, trade, the crisis in Myanmar following last year’s coup and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
As chair of ASEAN, Cambodia made an unsuccessful attempt to negotiate with Gen Min Aung Hlaing and his military leadership in Myanmar, which ousted the elected government in February last year. As a result, attitudes to the junta are hardening.
Indonesia, which has formed a troika with Malaysia and Brunei, will assume the chair of ASEAN in 2023 and is pressing for a much stronger response, which might include direct negotiations with the opposition National Unity Government and armed resistance groups opposed to military rule.
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