SINGAPORE: The Cambodia and Vietnam governments on Wednesday confirmed their commitment to “intensify cooperation to fight against cross border drug trafficking and all forms of drug offensives,” local news reports said. The partnership was made during a meeting between Cambodian deputy Prime Minister Ke Kim Yan, chairman of the National Authority for Combating Drugs, and visiting Vietnamese deputy Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc, chairman of the National Committee for Prevention and Control of Drugs, AIDS and Prostitution. Speaking at the meeting, Ke Kim Yan said that Cambodia is “not the country that produces illicit drugs, but it has been suffering from cross border drug smuggling, drug use and attempts to use Cambodia as a base for illicit drug production” by foreign criminals. “In the last few years, the authority has timely cracked down on a lot of locations which have been prepared to produce drug in Phnom Penh and some provinces,” he said. “The criminals have been brought to court for law-based punishment.” Currently, he said the National Authority for Combating Drugs estimated that there have been some 6,000 Cambodians using illicit drug; however, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) said that the country has up to 46,000 people using drug, most of them youths. Meanwhile, Ke Kim Yan asked the Vietnamese side to continue cooperation in information exchange to prevent and crack down on transnational drug smuggling. He also suggested that Vietnam provide aid to Cambodia for the construction of the National Center for Drug Addicts Rehabilitation. Nguyen Xuan Phuc said that the closer cooperation between the two neighbors was very vital to eliminate all forms of drug offensives by 2015, saying that Vietnam would still continue helping Cambodia in this work. He also promised to accept Cambodian drug law practitioners and drug rehabilitation officials to train in Vietnam.
