USS Cincinnati’s Visit Highlights Deepening U.S.-Cambodia Partnership
Defence minister Tea Seiha, Admiral Samuel Paparo, Commander of the US Indo-Pacific Command, and their delegations, at Ream Navy Base. Hong Raksmey
Marking 76 years of diplomatic ties, the United States reaffirmed its commitment to Cambodia’s sovereignty and strengthened bilateral cooperation as USS Cincinnati made a port visit. US Indo-Pacific Command Chief Admiral Samuel Paparo emphasized expanding maritime exercises, joint security initiatives, and strategic dialogue, underscoring a shared vision for a free and stable Indo-Pacific region.
US Admiral Paparo said:
And so, first, I’d like to acknowledge the United States’ deep respect for our mutual relationship with Cambodia, which, as you know now, spans 76 years. And the United States of America was, I believe, the very first, if not among the first, to recognise the sovereignty of the Cambodian state some 76 years ago. And so, all along the way, our Cambodian friends assured us that Ream would be a sovereign port.
And accordingly, this is why USS Cincinnati’s visit is an expression of our confidence in Cambodia’s own sovereignty and a good faith expression of our partnership moving forward. On your superb question of our moving forward together in deepening our partnership, you know, our partnership has been on a great upward trajectory now, having overcome the rigours of COVID-19 and now reaching the next level. We had strategic leader or defence dialogue talks recently at Camp Smith in Hawaii among Cambodian leaders.
We now have USS Cincinnati’s port visit. We exercise together in the ASEAN-U.S. maritime exercises. And planning is proceeding next month to reinvigorate Angkor Sentinel.
There are many other maritime and joint opportunities for us to partner together. And this, in conjunction with our work together on helping to resolve the border crisis, demonstrates the deep but growing partnership between the United States and Cambodia. Moving forward, our ambition is to deepen that partnership through the wellspring of mutual respect as we both cultivate a free and open Indo-Pacific, where all nations, large and small, can enjoy the fruits of investment, stability, and security.
The planning begins again for Angkor Sentinel in earnest in late February, early March.
Our expectation is that we will do the exercise in the later part of this year, 2026, or the early part of 2027. We have yet to decide that, but planning in earnest begins in about 30 days. Since 2006, there have been 37 port visits to Cambodia.
So we have ambitions for more than just annual port visits. And so we’re working together to cultivate more port visits, to cultivate more maritime exercising together, building up our capability, building up interoperability through this lens of mutual respect. Thank you.
Yes, Secretary Pete Hegseth has the desire to visit here within the coming year. And so I think, you know, we’ll continue to work out the schedules. But the Secretary has made known his ambition to visit Cambodia through this lens of friendship and mutual respect.
I appreciate that. I had a very fruitful meeting with Prime Minister Hun Manet, who I’ve had the great honour of meeting him several times. And so today, I was very grateful that he took the time to meet with me.
We talked about items of mutual interest in building up the partnership. We did have a discussion of the U.S. role in helping bring about the peace on the border crisis. And the entire conversation really went through the prism of Cambodia and the United States as great peace-loving nations and wanting to work together toward regional peace and wherever we can work together.
So I was very grateful to Prime Minister Hun Manet for his leadership and his vision.
-Khmer Times-
