Japan and Cambodia leaders urge Russia to immediately end war in Ukraine

Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and his Cambodian counterpart, Hun Sen, urged Russia on Sunday to immediately end the war in Ukraine and withdraw its forces from the country, condemning the aggression as “a grave breach of the United Nations Charter.”

In a joint statement issued after their meeting in Phnom Penh, the leaders also called for the immediate cessation of violence in coup-hit Myanmar and demanded that the junta release ousted civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi and other detainees and restore the democratic political system.

Kishida and Hun Sen “recognised that this aggression jeopardises the foundation of international order which does not accept any unilateral change of the internationally recognised borders by force,” according to the statement, although it did not single out Russia.

“We confirmed to closely cooperate to preserve the foundation of the international order,” Kishida told a joint press conference with Hun Sen.

“War cannot be ended by war and peaceful solution is the only means,” Hun Sen said, citing Cambodia’s experience of fighting a civil war from 1970 to 1991.

Given Russian President Vladimir Putin’s suggestion that the country could use its nuclear arsenal in the face of Ukraine’s resistance and economic sanctions from Western nations, Kishida and Hun Sen stressed, “Neither threat nor use of all kind of weapons of mass destruction can ever be accepted.”

As the veto power held by Russia, a permanent member of the Security Council, has made the top UN decision-making body fall into disarray in addressing the Ukraine crisis, the leaders agreed that reform of the Security Council is needed as soon as possible and pledged to cooperate in coordinating its reform.