Dear Editor,

I wish to make some clarifications in response to the art-icle published in The Phnom Penh Post on October 18 under the headline: “Obama set for first official visit, off-icial says”, written by Mom Kunthear and Kristin Lynch.

The article totally misquoted me during the press briefing after the meeting between HE Deputy Prime Minister Hor Namhong, the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Inter-national Co-operation, and HE  David Carden, the US ambassador to ASEAN, on October 17, this year.

In fact, I told reporters Mr Carden had told HE Deputy Prime Minister Hor Namhong that President Barack Obama would attend EAS during the ASEAN summits in Bali, Indonesia, next month.

Referring to Cambodia's chairmanship of ASEAN in 2012, Mr Carden said the US would hold presidential elections in early November, 2012 too.

So if ASEAN summits and related summits occur after the US presidential elections, he hoped that the US president would be able to attend the related summits on the sidelines of the ASEAN summits in November, 2012 in Cambodia.

I wish to request you to kindly publish these clarif-ications in your newspaper in full.

Yours truly,

Koy Kuong,

Spokesman, Ministry of Foreign Affairs

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