CAMBODIA (Hansard, 22 October 1991)

The Earl of Caithness

Agreements on a comprehensive political settlement of the Cambodia conflict will be signed in Paris on 23nd October at the reconvened Paris conference on Cambodia, meeting in ministerial session.

Once signed on 23rd October, the agreements will be published as a command paper. In the meantime the draft agreements have been placed in the Library of the House. They are closely based on the work of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council and Indonesia.

The comprehensive settlement provides the elements for the Security Council to establish the mandate for the UN transitional authority in Cambodia (UNTAC): and a formal ceasefire: the regrouping, cantonment, disarmament and demobilisation of the forces of all the Cambodian parties: comprehensive provisions to protect human rights before and after elections: free and fair elections: and international guarantees of the sovereignty, independence, territorial integrity and inviolability, neutrality and national unity of Cambodia.

The agreements to be signed on 23rd October are the result of more than two years' work since the Paris conference on Cambodia was suspended in August 1989. As a permanent member of the UN Security Council, the United Kingdom has played a central role in these efforts.

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Throughout we have insisted that there must be no return to the atrocities of the Pol Pot years and that self-determination of the Cambodian people through free and fair elections must be central to any agreement.

We welcome the new-found spirit of co-operation and reconciliation among the Cambodian parties which has made these agreements possible and congratulate Prince Sihanouk for his personal contribution to the peace process.