PHNOM PENH – Senate President Hun Sen has dismissed social media claims that provinces in the Cambodia-Lao-Vietnam (CLV) Development Triangle will be taken over by Vietnam.

He said on July 23 that the area was set up only to increase economic cooperation and social, security and cross-border disaster management.

In a live televised address in response to online uproar over the issue, Hun Sen said that it was his idea to propose to Laotian and Vietnamese leaders to develop the area in 1999. 

Cambodia included four provinces in the area: Ratanakiri and Stung Treng in 1999, Mondulkiri in 2002 and Kratie in 2010, he said.

He needed to address the issue himself rather than allow the new prime minister or other institution to speak on it because he had a deeper grasp of the story than the next leadership generation because he was the founder of CLV and had attended its summits up to 11 times since 1999.

“The inclusion of the provinces is not to establish a country or a province as alleged online,” he said. Each country still governed their respective provinces and would complement one another for development.

He said three people had been arrested in Siem Reap over the issue.

He had initiated the agreement to develop the poorly developed area and Cambodia had gained the most from it.

He said that people in the provinces on the Cambodian side found it hard to travel and relied on the Vietnamese side to reach central parts of the country. Transporting goods was also difficult due to lack of roads and their poor condition.

Such a situation needed to be addressed by the three countries and there had been cooperation on four main aspects.

The first was economic interconnectedness which included transporting goods, tourism and electricity. He said Kratie province had received electricity supplies from Vietnam while Stung Treng was supplied by Lao.

“It gives many benefits for Cambodia,” he said.

The development triangle area also boosted security and defense cooperation among the countries, he said, pointing out that the bordering areas were vulnerable to insurgents, human trafficking and the drug trade as well as illegal logging.

The three countries also benefited from education, health and human resources cooperation. Cambodians had been able to get treatment in Vietnamese hospitals.   

The former prime minister said that the initiative also focused on joint disaster management in the triangle area. The countries had organized joint humanitarian rescue exercises and given early warnings on water flow and incidents.