Word: kampuchean
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...means risking a return of the Khmer Rouge killers. Suddenly, however, a rare convergence of interests among all parties has made the prospect appear bright that a political settlement may finally end the fighting in Kampuchea. The new optimism has been triggered by a "peace blitz" in Asian capitals. Kampuchean President Heng Samrin began raising hopes earlier this month when he said Hanoi might be willing to withdraw its estimated 50,000 remaining troops by September...
Thailand, host to the rebel factions and the refugees, joined the blitz. In a startling turnaround from a policy of refusing to talk to Phnom Penh, the new Prime Minister, Chatichai Choonhavan, invited Kampuchean Prime Minister Hun Sen for discussions in Bangkok, possibly to start as early as this week. + Before, says an ASEAN diplomat, "Thailand and ASEAN wouldn't have touched Hun Sen with a 10-ft. pole...
Last week ASEAN foreign ministers met to lay the groundwork for another "informal meeting" in Jakarta that will bring together the Kampuchean government, some if not all of the rebel factions, China, Viet Nam and Thailand. The object is to set up a formal peace parley aimed at devising a government power-sharing formula, nailing down a Vietnamese withdrawal timetable and establishing international monitoring of the peace...
...questions bedeviling the diplomats is the role the Khmer Rouge would play in a Kampuchean government after the Vietnamese withdraw. As a U.S. official said, "A return of the Khmer Rouge would be unacceptable in the eyes of the world." Its political comeback would be acutely embarrassing to Washington. In supporting the non-Communist members of the rebel coalition, the U.S. has at least indirectly backed the Khmer Rouge as well. But Washington hopes to undercut the Khmer Rouge by boosting aid to Sihanouk. Diplomats in Beijing believe that China is ready to accept the "decapitation" of the Khmer Rouge...
...nations have convened. The chances for a breakthrough anytime soon are slim. Only the U.S., the Soviet Union and Iraq have even acknowledged owning chemical arsenals. Yet in recent years, there have been claims that poison gases have been used by Libya against Chad, by Viet Nam against Kampuchean rebels and by Iran and Iraq against each other in their recently concluded war. It was Iraq's slaughter of the Kurds that prompted President Reagan to call for the Paris conference. The initiative was quickly seconded by President Francois Mitterrand of France, one of the countries that had unwittingly supplied...