Foreign Minister Hor Namhong has written a letter to the newly appointed Cambodian ambassador to South Korea to censure him over the alleged involvement of his family members in embassy affairs.
In the letter, dated Monday, Mr. Namhong warns Ambassador Suth Dina not to allow his relatives to interfere at the embassy.
“I would like to advise His Excellency as follows: (1) strictly prohibit any relatives or anyone else that is not embassy staff to interfere in the embassy’s affairs,” the letter reads.
“(2) [In the case of] His Excellency’s absence from the Embassy, he must first ask the Ministry and give all stamps to the acting attache, and (3) strictly prohibit any relatives or anyone else who is not an embassy official to run the embassy.”
Mr. Namhong is the father of the Cambodian ambassador to Japan and the former ambassador to Great Britain, while another one of his sons is a permanent secretary-general at the Foreign Affairs Ministry.
Mr. Dina defended himself against Mr. Namhong’s letter of censure in a response on his Facebook page on Wednesday.
“I have never brought relatives—not even my wife and children—to my workplace,” he wrote.
“How could I have committed these activities?”
Mr. Dina pointed out in his response that he has in fact taken pains to stamp out corruption in the embassy.
“I have announced publicly that I stopped [the illegal receipt] of cash payment or commissions to make any documents or passport and so on,” he wrote.
The issue has come up repeatedly among migrant workers in South Korea, who have complained that the embassy was illicitly soliciting money from them.
