Curtain closes on Kim Jong Il [The death of Sihanouk's great friend?]

Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong-il.

Bridget Di Certo and Vong Sokheng
Tuesday, 20 December 2011
The Phnom Penh Post

Enigmatic North Korean leader Kim Jong Il died of a heart attack on Saturday at 69 years of age, North Korean state media reported yesterday.

While it’s a death unlikely to result in an outpouring of grief worldwide, Cambodia has been one of the few countries to maintain steadfastly friendly relations with the isolated and impoverished communist state and the family that has ruled it for some 60 years.

Phnom Penh and Pyongyang have had a unique relationship ever since King Father Norodom Sihanouk and Kim Il Sung, Kim Jong Il’s late father, met in 1965 at a banquet hosted by then-Indonesian President Sukarno in Jakarta for the 10th anniversary of the Afro-Asian or “Bandung” Conference, which supported an anti-colonialist, non-aligned movement.