By Luke Hunt
Cambodian politicians and bureaucrats have embarked on an exercise in damage control amid continuing fallout from last week’s ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF), when foreign ministers with Phnom Penh as chair, ended an annual summit in acrimony and failed to issue a joint communiqué.
That failure also sharply focused attention on disputes in the South China Sea and Cambodia’s cozy relationship with China and its desire to deal with any territorial disputes with members of the 10-nation Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) on a bilateral basis.
Heng Samrin, Chairman of Cambodia’s National Assembly, will head a Parliamentary delegation to Hanoi or talks over the weekend in an attempt to placate Vietnamese anger over Cambodia’s apparent siding with China on the issue.
This comes amid a separate peace mission by Indonesian Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa who has taken on the role of mediator and already held talks with The Philippines and Vietnam.
Read the full story at The Diplomat