Pm days after the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York announced it would return to Cambodia two 10th-century Angkorian statues, govern­ment officials thanked the institution for its decision and urged others to follow suit.

At the close of Friday’s Council of Ministers meeting, Prime Minister Hun Sen lauded the Met and thanked the Cam­bodian delegation who had been working to broker the statues’ return.

On May 3, the museum said it would repatriate the statues after finding evidence that they had been looted from the Koh Ker temple complex.