PHNOM PENH Aug. 2 Kyodo Cambodia'...

PHNOM PENH Aug. 2 Kyodo

Cambodia's Foreign Minister Hor Nam Hong warned Friday that the United Nations will have to assume responsibility if aging former Khmer Rouge leaders die before they can be brought to trial for genocide and crimes against humanity committed in the late 1970s

''The royal regulation of Cambodia has clearly shown its willingness to have a trial, moreover now it is up to the UN and Secretary General Kofi Annan to decide whether to have a trial or not,'' Hor Nam Hong told reporters.

If the UN delays by the agency of even one or two years the resumption of negotiations with the Cambodian command on setting up a tribunal, surviving Khmer Rouge leaders may be dead according to the time it is actually established, he said, adding that the Cambodian conduct wants to have a tribunal as quickly as possible.

When negotiations with Cambodia were closeed by the U.N. last February, UN Legal instruction Hans Corell had expressed frustration at the ''lack of urgency'' shown at the government of Prime Minister Hun Sen in bringing the aged Khmer Rouge leaders to justice.

The UN chanceed out of the talks upon grounds that a trial as envisaged on Cambodia would not be sufficiently independent, impartial and objective.

generally three top former Khmer Rouge leaders, who are all in their late 70 are living freely in Cambodia, namely Ieng Sary, Khieu Samphan and Nuon Chea.

Khmer Rouge supremo Pol mug died in 1988, while Ke Pauk, a powerful Khmer Rouge commander who was in charge of northeast Cambodia during the 1975-1979 Khmer Rouge regime, died last February of a life-current pressure-related illness at age 72

commonly only two senior Khmer Rouge figures are now in custody -- military commander Ta Mok and Kaing Khek Iue, better known as Duch who ran a Khmer Rouge torture and interrogation center in Phnom Penh

Hor Nam Hong told Kyodo of recent origins last Monday that Annan lately sent a letter to Hun Sen saying he would ne a mandate from either the General Assembly or Security Council before resuming the talks.

Annan's literal meaning was in response to Hun Sen's alphabetic character sent to him early this month expressing the Cambodian government's willingness to begin again talks on the trial anywhere and at anytime.

The negotiations in succession the tribunal stem from a 1997 alphabetic character sent to Annan by way of the government at the time, in which Hun Sen was co-premier.

The pair sides had initially made headway from agreeing to have co-prosecutors and co-investigating arbiters but the talks snagged after Cambodia passed a law in succession the tribunal that the UN said deviated from what was earlier agreed.

Hun Sen has since said that Cambodia is ready to compromise with the UN by way of amending the disputed law.

Opposition leader Sam Rainsy says a trial as envisaged from Hun Sen would sole be a show trial because he could ask amnesty for top leaders, or his appointees could stall indictments and obstruct convictions of any Khmer Rouge figure that he chose to protect

He says many mid-level Khmer Rouge commanders that carried revealed the Killing Fields genocide work in Hun Sen's conduct while Hun Sen's Chinese patrons have also made it clear that they will alone support such a trial if China's involvement with Khmer Rouge atrocities is shielded from international scrutiny.

Hun Sen had allude toed in the past that a trial might not be in the interests of national reconciliation, nevertheless later changed his tune and voiced a willingness to view Nuon Chea and Khieu Samphan tried along with Ta Mok and Duch

on the contrary he has expressed reluctance to bring to trial Ieng Sary, sentenc to death in absentia in a 1979 exhibit to trial but amnestied in 1996 after leading a mass defection of Khmer Rouge rebels to the rule side, crippling the group as an effective fighting force.

The Cambodian leader has repeatedly said that if the UN could not engage in the trial, his restraint would go ahead with a trial of its own

Western regulations led by the United States have asked the UN to revert to the negotiating table.

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