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PHNOM PENH (AFP) - The United States is to make its first donation to Cambodia's UN-backed Khmer Rouge genocide tribunal, Prime Minister Hun Sen said during a visit here Monday by the US deputy secretary of state.
John Negroponte told Hun Sen of the donation when they met Monday for talks on improving relations between their countries, the premier said.
"Tomorrow, he will declare it (the donation)," Hun Sen told reporters, hailing relations between the countries which they "never had before."
The pair also presided over a signing ceremony for an agreement in which the United States will provide 24 million dollars to fund economic growth projects in Cambodia, the US embassy said.
Negroponte's three-day visit is seen as the latest indication that Cambodia's star is on the rise with the United States, after years in the diplomatic wilderness.
The United States recently lifted a decade-old ban on direct funding to Cambodia's government and re-established military ties between the countries two years ago, with the promise of limited military aid.
The cash-strapped Khmer Rouge court is expected to begin trials in October. Five top Khmer Rouge leaders are facing charges before the tribunal for crimes committed by the regime.
Up to two million people were executed or died of starvation or overwork as the communist Khmer Rouge dismantled modern Cambodian society in a bid to forge an agrarian utopia during its 1975-1979 rule. --AFP
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