Colombo [Sri Lanka], August 22: Visiting President of the 76th Session of the United Nations General Assembly Abdulla Shahid on Monday underscored his appreciation for Cambodia's commitment to multilateralism and its contribution to maintaining peace and security in the region and the world, a Cambodian spokesman said.
Shahid, who is concomitantly Maldivian foreign minister, made the remarks during a meeting with Cambodian Foreign Ministry's standing secretary of state Ouch Borith in Phnom Penh, said Foreign Ministry's spokesman Chum Sounry.
"He (Shahid) was impressed to see Cambodia's rapid development progress in all fields and commended Cambodia's success in combating the spread of COVID-19, as well as steady economic recovery from the pandemic," the spokesman said.
For his part, Borith praised the good working relations between Cambodia and all 26 UN agencies in the fields of health, food security, environment, education and other various sectors.
While touching on Cambodia's contribution to the UN Peace-Keeping Operations, Borith and Shahid underlined Cambodia's proud transformation from being a recipient country of the UN Peace Keepers in the 1990s to a significant contributing country to the UN Peacekeeping Missions around the world.
Borith highlighted that since 2006, Cambodia has dispatched 8,302 soldiers, including 580 women, to join 11 UN Peace Keeping Missions in nine countries.
According to the spokesman, both sides also discussed ways to further enhance Cambodia-Maldives bilateral relations, including through the exchange of top level visits, consideration of an agreement on visa exemption between the two countries, and the establishment of political consultations between the two foreign ministries to explore potential areas for bilateral cooperation.
The UNGA president arrived in Cambodia on Sunday for a two-day working visit, where he also paid courtesy calls on Cambodian Prime Minister SamdechTecho Hun Sen and National Assembly's President SamdechHengSamrin.
Source: Xinhua
