The Ministry of National Defence of the Republic of Korea provided engineering machinery to the National Centre for Peacekeeping Forces, Mines and ERW Clearance (NPMEC) to be used in the UN peacekeeping training set to take place later this year.

The handover ceremony was held on February 23 and attended by NPMEC general director Sem Sovanny and the military attache from the South Korean embassy in Phnom Penh.

NPMEC said that this machinery will contribute to the effectiveness of training for peacekeepers before their departure to a target country set by the UN. It said that every year, a certain number of peacekeepers are rotated out and replaced by another group and they all need to first undergo training.

Sovanny said that the machinery was provided through the memorandum of understanding signed between Minister of Defence Tea Banh and his South Korean counterpart Lee Jong-Sup in November 2022. In the MoU, the two countries agreed to begin a peacekeeping training project organised by three parties: Cambodia, South Korea and the UN.

According to Sovanny, Cambodian peacekeepers are currently deployed to the Central African Republic, Lebanon and Mali for mission durations of one year before they are rotated home again and replaced by new units.