Minister of Interior Sar Kheng met with UK ambassador Dominic Williams on April 5 to discuss cooperation on fighting transnational crime, particularly human trafficking.
According to Sar Kheng’s social media post following the meeting, Williams expressed his appreciation for the level of cooperation between the UK and the interior ministry and the ongoing growth that is taking place.
Sar Kheng said he hoped that during William’s tenure as ambassador, the two sides are able to develop the cooperation and bilateral relationship further to include more opportunities for Cambodia’s law enforcement officers to receive the benefit of training and assistance from their UK counterparts.
“I ask the UK to further strengthen cooperation, and share their experiences and practices for enhancing the capacity of the Cambodian law enforcement forces in the fight against transnational crime,” Sar Kheng wrote.
The minister noted that Williams expressed admiration for the positive relations between their governments and peoples, particularly the effective partnership they enjoy with the interior ministry.
He further complimented Sar Kheng for his efforts to combat money laundering and to bring about improvements in that area very rapidly to get Cambodia removed from the grey list of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF).
“The ambassador was also pleased to work with ASEAN member countries to implement mechanisms to combat transnational crime, especially those related to human trafficking. The ambassador considered such efforts a demonstration of the UK’s commitment and willingness to contribute to maintaining good security in the region,” the post added.
Sar Kheng said he appreciated that the international community recognised the strong efforts that Cambodia had made to deal with the money laundering.
“We are strongly committed to combating all kinds of transnational crimes, especially human trafficking and illegal drugs. That’s a complicated issue, but Cambodia will continue in its efforts to resolve these big problems,” he said.
He emphasised that Cambodia cannot accomplish this work alone in combating transnational crime, especially human trafficking and that it would require a regional and even global effort to search out the criminal networks and punish the ringleaders.
