Japan’s foreign minister on Saturday announced a joint project with Cambodia to share mine clearance knowledge and technology with countries around the world, including Ukraine.
Foreign Minister Yoko Kamikawa made the comments during a visit to the Cambodian Mine Action Centre, which was established in the 1990s at the end of the Southeast Asian country’s decades of civil war. It aims to combat an estimated four to six million landmines and other unexploded ordnance scattered around the country.
“Cambodia, which has made steady progress in mine clearance in its own country, is now a leader in mine action in the world,” she noted, adding that Japan has consistently cooperated in mine clearance in Cambodia since the civil war.
Cambodian deminers are among the most experienced in the world, with several thousand sent over the past decade under UN auspices to work in Africa and the Middle East. Cambodia began training Ukrainian deminers in 2022, which also suffers from a high density of landmines and other unexploded ordnance as the two-year Russian invasion drags on.
“As part of practical cooperation under the Japan-Cambodia Initiative on Landmines, Japan will provide large-scale assistance to humanitarian mine action in Ukraine,” said Mr.me Kamikawa: Next week we will deliver a large mine-clearing machine to Ukraine, and next month, here in Cambodia, we will train Ukrainian personnel on how to operate the machine.
The non-governmental organization Landmine Monitor, in its 2022 report, listed Cambodia and Ukraine among nine countries with “massive” mine contamination, meaning they had more than 100 square kilometers of uncleared land.
Since the fighting in Cambodia ended, nearly 20,000 people have been killed and about 45,000 injured by explosive remnants of the war, although the average annual death toll has fallen from several thousand to fewer than 100.
Despite a very active mine clearance programme, many dangerous munitions remain in place, representing a danger to villagers.
Cambodia’s training of Ukrainian deminers, both in Poland and Cambodia, came after former Prime Minister Hun Sen – in an unusual move for a country that usually aligns itself with Russia and China – condemned Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, saying that “Cambodia is always against any country that invades another country.”
Cambodia was one of nearly 100 UN member countries to co-sponsored a resolution condemning the Russian invasion.
Several other countries, including the United States and Germany, have already provided mine clearance assistance to Ukraine.
Mme Kamikawa also met with Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet and with Hun Sen, her father who stepped down last year after 38 years in power.
She signed agreements with her Cambodian counterpart, Foreign Minister Sok Chenda Sophea, on a preferential loan from Tokyo of up to 8.3 billion yen ($70.36 million) for the modernization of the highway between the capital Phnom Penh and the Thai border, and on a grant of up to 386 million yen ($3.27 million) for young administrative officials to study in Japan, a statement from the Japanese embassy said.
Kamikawa will then travel to the Philippines, where she and Japanese Defense Minister Minoru Kihara will hold talks with their Filipino counterparts on Monday. They are expected to discuss signing a mutual defense pact that would allow each country to deploy troops on the other’s territory.