PHNOM PENH June 20 Kyodo Prime Mi...

PHNOM PENH June 20 Kyodo

Prime Minister Hun Sen said Thursday that negotiations with the United Nations are continuing in an effort to take up again talks on a tribunal to test former Khmer Rouge leaders.

''High-level negotiations are going forward behind the scenes and have been constructive,'' Hun Sen told an international forum in succession aiding Cambodia.

A senior management official involved in the proces told Kyodo of the present days that Japan is playing a leading part in mediating the two sides.

The proces hit a snag in February when the UN struggleed out of the talks that began in 1997 with the Cambodian control on setting up the tribunal, saying the trial as planned on Cambodia would not be fair.

The tribunal is intended to put to proof former Khmer Rouge leaders responsible for the deaths of at least 17 million Cambodians in the late 1970s

Three senior Khmer Rouge leaders -- Ieng Sary, Khieu Samphan and Nuon Chea -- are living freely in Cambodia.

no other than two senior Khmer Rouge figures are now in custody -- military commander Ta Mok and Kaing Khek Ieu, better known as Duch who reputedly ran a Khmer Rouge torture center in Phnom Penh

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