Cabinet Denies King is Sick

A day after Queen Norodom Monineath said her husband was sick, the King’s cabinet denied he was seriously ill.

“He is a little bit tired only because of the heavy schedule. It’s nothing else,” an aide at the cabinet said Thursday.

King Norodom Sihanouk, 76, was continuing to receive visitors at the palace, the aide said. “Every day he has a schedule.”

At Wednesday’s Land Mine Awareness Day ceremony the Queen told the audience her husband was unable to attend because he could not travel long distances. The ceremony was at Chak­tomuk Theater, just 300 meters from the Royal Palace.

“The King told me that he is not so well,” Queen Monineath told officials, dignitaries and diplomats at ceremony. “He couldn’t come here, so please accept his apologies. He wanted me to bring his words to you.”

Another member of the royal family, Funcinpec parliamentarian Princess Sisowath Norodom Diyath, told Deutsche Presse-Agentur on Wednesday the Ki­­ng was in poor health.

King Sihanouk, revered by many as the father of modern Cambodia, suffers a variety of ailments that require him to spend several months each year in Beijing. He returned from his last round of treatment about one month ago. The aide said that the King has no immediate plans to return to Beijing.

 

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