Samdech Akka Moha Sena Padei Techo Hun Sen, Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Cambodia, said friendship is very important for the Asia and Europe to build more cooperation.
In his keynote address to the virtual opening ceremony of the 11th Asia-Europe Parliamentary Partnership Meeting (ASEP11), one of six side events of the 13th Asia-Europe Summit to be hosted by Cambodia, Samdech Techo Hun Sen expressed his highly valued of the close relationship within the Asia-Europe Partnership.
“I am confident that our friendship will continue to strive, strengthen and persevere as a foundation to promote cooperation and resolve common crises that we will face in the future,” he underlined.
The Premier continued that the COVID-19 pandemic, which has disrupted daily norms of works and livelihood, can be considered as a test of Asia-Europe’s commitment to maintain a trust-based cooperation. “Although this crisis has threatened the global multilateralism, the commitment to strengthen the cooperation remains unshaken. On the contrary, a strong cooperative Asia-Europe Partnership shall let us overcome and emerge from this global crisis together, without leaving any country behind,” he said.
Amidst this challenging circumstance, he added, the ASEP is a critical and core mechanism to connect people to people of the two continents, and the results from this meeting will be served as invaluable inputs and recommendation for the upcoming ASEM13. As the host of the ASEM13, Cambodia’s priority is to promote and strengthen multilateralism in order to achieve a sustainable, inclusive, and resilient post-pandemic socio-economic recovery.
“The global peace and security are facing immense pressure and uncertainties due to intensifying geopolitical rivalries. Geopolitical fault lines are being drawn, and force small States to choose political agendas that do not reflect their will or national interests. In the context of such tense geopolitical rivalry, only a trust-based partnership allows us to preserve a multilateral system that guarantees world’s peace, stability, growth and prosperity. In this spirit, we all need to continue upholding the value of peace, and constantly explore necessary mechanisms to achieve this noble and cherished goal,” he said.
The Asia-Europe parliamentary institutions will play a crucial role in enhancing trusts, in advancing Parliamentary Preventive Diplomacy, and ultimately, in securing strategic trust on security and stability issues, which are increasingly more complex and intertwined, stressed Samdech Techo Prime Minister, affirming, “On this basis, Cambodia is committed to strictly adhering to the principles of mutual respect, mutual learning, mutual understanding, mutual trust, and mutual interest to build the necessary foundation for implementing our multilateral foreign policy. Should there be no robust multilateralism, we cannot certainly solve the aforementioned issues as a whole.”
The ASEP11 is held via videoconference on Nov. 16, about a week ahead of the 13th ASEM Summit (ASEM13) to be hosted by Cambodia.
Source: Agency Kampuchea Press