US assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Daniel Kritenbrink arrived in Cambodia on July 11 for a visit that had been postponed for two and a half months earlier this year due to his testing positive for Covid-19.
After his visit to Cambodia wraps up, Kritebrink will visit Japan until July 15 and after that he will head back to the US.
Kritenbrink met with Cambodian Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation Prak Sokhonn on July 12 to discuss bilateral relations, US support for Cambodia as ASEAN chair and other regional and global issues, according to a US state department press release.
Back in May, Kritenbrik announced the postponement of his scheduled visits to Cambodia and Laos, which were set to take place eight days prior the ASEAN-US special summit 2022, because he had tested positive for Covid-19.
Kritenbrink’s current visit to Cambodia and Japan comes just three days after former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was killed by an assassin wielding a homemade gun during a political campaign speech for his party in Nara, Japan on July 8.
The state department press release confirms that while in Japan Kritenbrink will offer his condolences to the people of Japan as they mourn Abe in the wake of his assassination.
He will hold meetings with senior Japanese diplomats to discuss the strong partnership that has long existed between the US and Japan across a wide range of regional and global issues.
“The US-Japan Alliance is the cornerstone of peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific and our extensive cooperation across many areas has been indispensable to confronting global challenges, including Russia’s brutal and illegal war against Ukraine,” the press release added.
Thong Mengdavid, a research associate of the Mekong Center for Strategic Studies at the Asian Vision Institute (AVI), said Kritenbrink’s visit coincided with the recent completion of Cambodia’s commune elections and that it was an opportunity to educate him so that he better understands the Kingdom’s social democracy context and development in Cambodia related to the promotion of individual freedoms, the right to freedom of expression and the rule of law in Cambodia in accordance with the principles of democracy.
“At the same time, his visit shows that US interest in Cambodia remains high, which may be an opportunity for Cambodia to further clarify its positions on the issues and doubts the US has about the construction and development of military bases or naval bases at Ream by emphasising that Cambodia is a neutral country and that accepting any military base on Cambodian territory is contrary to specific provisions in the Cambodian Constitution,” he said.
He added that regional security was also a core issue for ASEAN, which was trying to resolve the crisis in Myanmar and the conflict over the South China Sea, which requires the participation of the most powerful countries in order to promote open and inclusive peace negotiations which have the participation of all stakeholders.
