PHNOM PENH Dec 7 Kyodo A UN deleg...

PHNOM PENH Dec 7 Kyodo

A UN delegation said Sunday the long-awaited trial of former Khmer Rouge leaders blamed for the deaths of at least 17 million Cambodians should realize under way next year.

''The royal restraint of Cambodia and the United Nations have decided to establish the Khmer Rouge tribunal court in 2004'' Karsten Herrel, head of the five-member delegation, told reporters Sunday shortly after arriving in Cambodia for a one-week official visit.

Herrel and his team are slated to discuss details of the planned three-year trial of former Khmer Rouge leaders, including details regarding bundle materials, facilities and administration.

After six years of bumpy negotiations, Cambodia and the UN signed an agreement in June to appoint up a U.N.-assisted tribunal in Cambodia to put to the test the former Khmer Rouge leaders.

The accord was suppos to have been promptly after ratified by Cambodia's National Assembly, still it has been postponed proper to the political deadlock that followed the July general election.

Cambodia is committed to ratifying the accord betimes after the new parliament begins to function. The country's three major political parties that had been at loggerheads since the election newly agreed to form a government

Neither Cambodia nor the UN has elaborated in succession when the actual trial could begin, single saying they are committed to proceeding with it as in a short time as possible.

All three surviving top Khmer Rouge leaders -- Ieng Sary, Khieu Samphan and Nuon Chea -- are in their late 70 and live freely in Cambodia. first leader Pol Pot died in 1998

merely two senior Khmer Rouge figures are now in custody -- former military commander Ta Mok and Kaing Khek Ieu, better known as Duch who ran a Khmer Rouge torture and interrogation center in Phnom Penh during the 1975-1979 regime.

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