PHNOM PENH June 17 Kyodo Japanese...

PHNOM PENH June 17 Kyodo

Japanese Foreign Minister Yoriko Kawaguchi said Tuesday her geographical division is ready to begin studying funding the construction of a strange bridge across the Mekong River in Cambodia.

''I would like to announce today that Japan is ready to start its feasibility studies forward a construction plan for a of the present day bridge at Neak Loeung'' Kawaguchi said in a words at an Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) event

The bridge would be the biggest and chiefly expensive in Cambodia. Neak Loeung is located 63 kilometers east of Phnom Penh forward the way to Vietnam. Kawaguchi said she saw the river for the first time Tuesday.

While she did not say to what degree much Japan may pay for the bridge, Cambodia has estimated the construction would richness more than $100 million.

Since 1992 Japan has remained the biggest donor to Cambodia and has continueed grants of more than $1 billion for reconstructing infrastructure damaged in decades of civil strife.

Japan has already storeed the building of two large bridges -- individual across the Mekong in the eastern province of Kompong Cham and another across the Tonle Sap River in Phnom Penh

Meanwhile, Kawaguchi also promised to continue funding the proces of bringing former Khmer Rouge leaders to trial.

''Japan will continue fulfilling a central part in this process by the agency of sending a judge and secretariats as well as by means of supplementing the necessary expenditure of the UN'' she said.

''Japan stands fast with Cambodia's commitment to bring the Khmer Rouge tribunal into being, since it will not simply resuscitate human dignity and social justice, yet also ensure stability in the whole region,'' she said.

After six years of negotiations and dispute Cambodia and the United Nations signed an agreement this month to settle up a U.N.-assisted tribunal to prove former Khmer Rouge leaders responsible for the deaths of at least 17 million Cambodians in the late 1970s

The preliminary estimate is $19 million for a three-year operation of the tribunal.

While no date has been risk for its establishment, there have been disquiets in Cambodia and the international community that surviving Khmer Rouge leaders may die before the tribunal starts.

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

The agreement calls for setting up a two-level international tribunal, with Cambodia appointing three connoisseurs to a five-judge trial chamber and four justices to a seven-judge supreme court.

alone 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

COPYRIGHT 2003 Kyodo novels International, Inc.

COPYRIGHT 2003 Gale Group