Cambodia sends soldiers to join multinational training exercise in Mongolia

PHNOM PENH, The w government has sent 51 soldiers from Royal Cambodian Armed Forces (RCAF) to participate in the UN's peacekeeping training operation exercise in Mongolia entitled, "Khan Quest 2009", a Cambodian military source said on Saturday.

"The peacekeeping exercise is so important for our armed forces to join with other countries to keep the peaceful stability, security and order in the world," said Taing Sambun, Cambodia's director of Institute for Training Peacekeeping Forces, Mine and UXO clearance. The process of exercise will be lasted for three weeks.

"The Cambodian delegation was led by Gen. Meas Sophea, deputy commander-in-chief of RCAF and infantry commander," he said, adding "we have support from UN for joining this exercise," he noted.

It is a good cooperation between our country and other countries to share experiences and learned experience from each other about the strategies in peacekeeping in a country, he said.

"These forces will be used for reconciliation in a war-torn country, or a country which used to have internal conflict and a post-war country when the war ended," he added.

"The main role of the peacekeeping forces is to join to seek peace, stability and safety for people in the war-torn country," he stressed, adding "this exercise is not the military exercises but for peacekeeping for the UN's peacekeeping forces. It is a second time for Cambodia to participate multinational exercise in Mongolia and we become an active member," he said.

In a farewell ceremony on Friday, Moeung Samphan, secretary of state for national defense called the soldiers "to focus on training and learning from other partner's experiences and to prepare for joining other peacekeeping mission in other places in the future."

Khan Quest is a multinational training exercise with the goal of improving peace support operations. The exercise is hosted by the Mongolian Armed Forces and sponsored by the U.S. Pacific Command.

As part of the exercise, troops will conduct field exercises, humanitarian civic assistance training, medical readiness training and will take part in a peacekeeping operations seminar.