Official Optimistic Cambodian Factions Will OK Peace Plan

The four warring factions in Cambodia appear ready to accept a U.N. peace plan to end their 11-year-old war, Indonesian Foreign Minister Ali Alatas said Sunday.

“We are encouraged by the fact that the four factions have indicated they can accept the document as the basis for settling the Cambodian conflict,” the foreign minister said after the opening session of peace talks here.

Alatas said “the circumstances for achieving a comprehensive settlement are unlikely ever again to be as favorable as they are now.”

The guerrillas and Cambodia’s Vietnam-backed government had no immediate comment.

The talks were focusing on a plan backed by the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council--the United States, Soviet Union, China, Britain and France--to end Cambodia’s civil war.

The plan envisions the formation of a transitional council on which each of the four Cambodian factions would be represented.

The so-called Supreme National Council would cede much of its authority to the United Nations, whose representatives would administer the country until free elections could be held. The plan also calls for disarming and regrouping the four armies.

Earlier meetings in Indonesia and elsewhere since July, 1988, ended inconclusively when the four factions disagreed on how to share power before elections.