Meet ‘set’ for Sokha, deputy Prime Minister

Deputy Prime Minister Sar Kheng, left, and Kem Sokha, deputy opposition leader, at a meeting at the National Assembly in Phnom Penh last year. Heng Chivoan

Meet ‘set’ for Sokha, deputy Prime Minister

Phnom Penh Post | 21 December 2016

Interior Minister Sar Kheng and deputy opposition leader Kem Sokha are scheduled to meet for discussions at the National Assembly today, a spokesman for the ruling party said yesterday, though a spokesman for the opposition said his party was unaware of the plans.

CPP spokesman Chheang Vun said the meeting between the parliament’s majority and minority leaders, originally scheduled for yesterday, would take place today instead.

Plans for a meeting before year’s end were announced by Kheng two weeks ago. The opposition said at the time it would be to discuss the four rights officials and an election official jailed in relation to the “prostitution” case that eventually saw Sokha convicted, and later pardoned, for refusing to honour a court summons.

Vun said he expected a workable resolution. “Normally when we meet together, there will be a resolution on the controversial problems,” he said, before adding the CPP would still “meet and smile at each other” if no solution is found.

But CNRP spokesman Yim Sovann said that he spoke to Sokha in the morning and hadn’t been told of any such plans. “If there was anything [planned], he would have called me.”