Hanoi-Funded Police Academy Inaugurated in Kompong Speu

BY PHANN ANA | JANUARY 19, 2015

Interior Minister Sar Kheng and his visiting Vietnamese counterpart, Tran Dai Quang, inaugurated a $2.2-million police academy in Kompong Speu province on Saturday constructed with Vietnamese funds, according to the website of the National Police.

A post on the website says Vietnam’s minister of public security presided over the opening of the facility, which sits on a 36-hectare plot about 90 km southwest of Phnom Penh.

The two ministers also signed off on a plan to strengthen cooperation on combating crime along their countries’ shared border, much of which has yet to be officially demarcated, and agreed that Cambodia would send an unspecified number of police to Vietnam for training, the post says.

Spokesmen for the National Police and Interior Ministry could not be reached for comment.

State news agency Agence Kampuchea Presse reported on Saturday that Mr. Dai Quang also met with Prime Minister Hun Sen in Phnom Penh on Friday, but offered no details about what the pair discussed.

Also on Saturday, the Vietnam News Agency reported that Nem Sowath, director-general of the Cambodian Defense Ministry’s police and foreign affairs department, and Colonel Nguyen Anh Dung, Vietnam’s military attache to Cambodia, signed a deal on Friday that would see Vietnam build a “military history institute” for the Royal Cambodian Armed Forces in Phnom Penh.

The article says Vietnam has already purchased equipment to build the institute but does not say how much the project is expected to cost.

Neither Lieutenant General Sowath nor a spokesman for the Defense Ministry could be reached.

Phnom Penh and Hanoi have maintained close relations since Vietnam invaded Cambodia to topple the Khmer Rouge in 1979. Vietnam occupied Cambodia for the next decade, during which it installed many of the people who still run the country, including Prime Minister Hun Sen, who marked 30 years in power last week.