Cambodia pulls out of a regional development pact after protests

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia — Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet said he was pulling his country out of a development agreement with neighboring Vietnam and Laos following protests that it was benefiting foreign interests.

Critics on social media have focused on land concessions in border areas particularly with Vietnam, a highly sensitive issue because of Cambodia's historical antagonism toward its larger eastern neighbor.

Authorities had arrested at least 66 people ahead of a planned August rally to condemn the Cambodia-Laos-Vietnam Development Triangle Area — or CLV-DTA. Most were later released but leaders are facing charges.

The agreement, formalized in 2004, intended to facilitate cooperation on trade and migration in four northeastern provinces of Cambodia and border areas in Laos and Vietnam.

Hun Manet called groups that opposed the agreement extremists and said they were using the issue to slander and attack the government and confuse the public.

''For instance, allegations that the government ceded the territory of the four northeastern provinces to foreign countries, etc," he wrote in a post late Friday.

He said that in the past 25 years Cambodia had built many achievements for the development of the four provinces but his government decided to pull out of the agreement, ''taking into account people's concern on territory and the need to withdraw weapons out of the hands of extremists to prevent them from using CLV-DTA to further cheat people."

Cambodia's government has long been accused of silencing critics and and political opponents. Hun Manet succeeded his father last year after Hun Sen ruled for four decades, but there have been few signs of political liberalization.