The Cambodian government has defended Prime Minister Hun Sen’s controversial decision to make a state visit to Myanmar, the first by a foreign leader since the military seized power last February. During his two-day visit on Friday and Saturday, Hun Sen met with Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing and other leaders of the military administration, for talks aimed at resolving the country’s tangle of political, economic, and humanitarian crises.
Speaking to reporters on Saturday, Foreign Minister Prak Sokhonn, who accompanied Hun Sen on the trip, said that talks between the Cambodian leader and Min Aung Hlaing achieved “a very good, positive result with a progressive step forward” on the implementation of the Five-Point Consensus agreed to by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).
Sokhonn, who also serves as ASEAN’s Special Envoy to Myanmar, also defended the trip, which has provoked a storm of criticism from both in Myanmar and abroad, for bestowing a degree of legitimacy on the sanguinary coup government. “If there is anyone who opposes progressing these negotiations and the agreements like this, it is only those people who love war, those people who do not want to see Myanmar return to stability and peace,” said Sokhonn.
