Carol Rodley, the former deputy chief of mission at the US Embassy in Phnom Penh, has been nominated to return to Cambodia as ambassador, embassy spokesman Jeff Daigle said.

"On May 13, 2008, President Bush announced his decision to nominate Ms Carol Ann Rodley to replace Ambassador [Joseph] Mussomeli as Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the United States of America to the Kingdom of Cambodia," Daigle wrote in a June 11 email to the Post.

"The President transmitted the nomination to the US Senate for its advice and consent the same day. We cannot speculate on when the Senate will act on the nomination," he added.

Rodley, a career officer in the Senior Foreign Service, had previously worked in Cambodia from 1997 to 2000.

She has served in senior positions at the Bureau of Intelligence and Research and also had assignments in Germany, South Africa, the Dominican Republic and Pakistan, according to the US State Department website.

Cambodia's ties to Washington have increased significantly in recent years, particularly military-to-military relations, which resumed in 2006.