Shultz Will Visit Non-Communist Cambodia Rebels

Secretary of State George P. Shultz will meet later this month with leaders of Cambodia’s non-Communist resistance forces on the Thai-Cambodian border, a senior State Department official said Tuesday.

The official, who spoke to reporters on condition he not be identified by name, said the meeting will take place at a major refugee evacuation site. He said Shultz will also visit a processing camp for Cambodian refugees bound for the United States.

The meeting will take place during a five-nation Asian trip beginning on Friday in which Shultz also will visit Hong Kong, Malaysia, Australia and Fiji.

The primary purpose of the Shultz mission is to attend discussions after the annual meeting in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, of the six members states of the Assn. of Southeast Asian Nations, or ASEAN. Member countries are Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, the Philippines, Singapore and Brunei.

The official said Shultz will offer assurances of continued U.S. support for ASEAN’s efforts to reach a political solution in Cambodia and assure the withdrawal of Vietnamese troops.

While in Thailand, Shultz will travel to the Cambodian border to assess the effects of U.S. economic assistance and the handling of refugees as well as to meet with leaders of the anti-Communist resistance inside Cambodia, the official said.

In meetings in Kuala Lumpur with government leaders, Shultz also is expected to meet with officials of the government of New Zealand. The two nations are at odds over the issue of port visits to the island nation by U.S. nuclear-armed or -powered vessels.

The U.S. official said that while the United States is keeping the door open for a resolution of the current impasse over such visits there is no indication it will be soon resolved.