Cambodia has agreed to resume a search effort with the US for the remains of Americans killed in the Vietnam War, the Cambodian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said yesterday, after suspending the program a year ago as tension rose between the two countries.
Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen suspended the POW/MIA program when Washington stopped issuing some visas after Cambodia refused to accept citizens deported from the US following their convictions for crimes there.
Ministry spokesman Ket Sophann said Hun Sen had offered to resume cooperation in a letter on Friday to US Senator Doug Ericksen and US Representative Vincent Buys.
“The letter talks to this itself, especially the words: It is the reflection of our deep empathy with the families,” Ket Sophann told reporters.
Hun Sen said the search program, which had run for 30 years until being suspended last year, would resume even though the visa curbs had “unjustly sanctioned” Cambodia.
“As we have discussed before, and at your personal request, as well as that made by other US organizations, my government, in the same compassionate spirit, agreed to resume this important POW/MIA field mission, regardless [of] the United States visa restriction in place,” Hun Sen wrote.
The US Embassy in the Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh declined to comment.
Hun Sen has said that the remains of half of the 80 US soldiers who went missing in Cambodia during the war in neighboring Vietnam have been found.
Even after it ended in 1975, the Vietnam War remains an emotive issue in Cambodia.
Hun Sen’s ruling party won all 125 parliamentary seats in a July election that the UN and Western countries have described as flawed.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in