2 Named to Head Interim Regime in Cambodia : Asia: Power-sharing accord improves chances for peaceful transition after civil war, election.

Cambodia’s head of state Prince Norodom Sihanouk named two co-chairmen Wednesday from the country’s main political parties to share power in an interim government. The arrangement increases the chances of a peaceful transition to democratic rule after a long civil war.

Sihanouk appointed as co-leaders his son, Prince Norodom Ranariddh, leader of the opposition royalist party known as FUNCINPEC, which won last month’s national elections, and Hun Sen, premier in the outgoing Phnom Penh regime whose Cambodian People’s Party placed second in the voting.

Sihanouk had attempted to form a similar coalition two weeks ago.

Neither FUNCINPEC nor the Phnom Penh regime issued a statement accepting the arrangements, but officials of the parties said they will stand by the announcement.

The interim government will serve for about three months while the newly elected Constituent Assembly drafts a new constitution and forms a new government.

Unlike his earlier proposal, the new agreement does not call for Sihanouk to serve as the country’s interim prime minister or commander in chief of the armed forces. Sihanouk asked the U.N. military chief in Cambodia, Lt. Gen. John Sanderson of Australia, to take charge of the armed forces, but Sanderson declined, saying the job should go to a Cambodian.

Sihanouk said the new administration will be called the National Provisional Government of Cambodia and that once the two parties choose ministers, it will submit itself to the Constituent Assembly for a vote of confidence.

Sihanouk said that Son Sann, head of the third-ranking party, the Buddhist Liberal Democratic Party, will be a vice chairman of the new government.

Sihanouk said that while he would preside over Cabinet meetings once a week, Ranariddh and Hun Sen have to relieve him of formal responsibility for running the government, “the armed forces, the police, economic and financial affairs, foreign affairs, etc.”

Sihanouk, who is 70, said he has health problems and problems with “certain foreign personalities” that prevent him from presiding over the government. This is apparently a reference to Sihanouk’s reported anger at the United States, Australia and Britain over their opposition to his first coalition plan.

In Washington, Winston Lord, assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs, told a Senate subcommittee that the United States would strongly oppose the inclusion of the Khmer Rouge in any future Cambodian government. The Khmer Rouge, blamed for the deaths of 1 million Cambodians during its harsh rule in the 1970s, boycotted last month’s election.

Wednesday’s power-sharing accord was reached after the collapse of a secessionist movement in seven eastern provinces led by another of Sihanouk’s sons, Prince Norodom Chakrapong, who had fled to Vietnam on Tuesday but returned to Cambodia to make peace with his father the following day.