South Korea Agrees to Help Cambodia Build Mekong Crossing

• 12 March 2018
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Courtesy meeting between H.E. Park Sokhonn and H.E. Oh Nak-young. Source: MFAIC

South Korea has agreed to help construct a Cambodia-Korea Friendship Bridge crossing the Mekong River in Phnom Penh in response to a request by Cambodian Prime Minister Samdech Hun Sen.

According to an official letter from the Cambodian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation (MFAIC) issued on 12 March, the request was accepted after H.E. Senior Minister Prak Sokhonn, Minister of MFAIC received a courtesy call on 9 March from H.E. Oh Nak-Young, the newly-appointed Ambassador of the Republic of Korea to the Kingdom of Cambodia.

This was a prompt response to Prime Minister Hun Sen’s request during his official meeting with H.E. Oh Nak-Young last month. According to Prime Minister Samdech Hun Sen, Cambodia already has friendship bridges from China and Japan, thus it should be a great pleasure for Cambodia to also have a Cambodia-Korea Friendship Bridge in addition.

The ministry has yet to reveal however the details of this new bridge including the budget and the construction start date.

Besides the offering of the assistance, the official courtesy meeting was also considered as a warm welcome for the return of H.E. Oh Nak-Young to be ambassador again 10 years after leaving Cambodia, during which time a great many diplomatic discussions have been achieved focusing mainly on the cooperation between ASEAN-Korea and Mekong-Korea bilateral frameworks.