BEIJING, July 17: Hoping to broker an end to the civil war in Cambodia, a delegation of Southeast Asian diplomats met today with King Norodom Sihanouk in Beijing, where he is undergoing medical treatment.In advance of the meeting with the foreign ministers of Indonesia, Thailand and the Philippines, Sihanouk warned that they would be private and that their contents would not be publicised. The proceedings of a three-and-a-half-hour-long meeting between 74-year-old Sihanouk and Japanese Special Envoy Yukio Imagawa on Wednesday were also kept secret.Sihanouk has insisted he will not take the side of his son, Prince Norodom Ranariddh against Hun Sen, who ousted him in a coup earlier this month. But in a statement released on yesterday, the King demanded an end to the torture and killing of Hun Sen's opponents.ASEAN wants a restoration of the coalition government, including Ranariddh, which existed before the coup and in protest has put off plans to admit Cambodia as a member. Meanwhile, King Sihanouk today downplayed the political problems of his strife-ridden nation by warning that landmines were its greatest evil.
