SIHANOUKVILLE, Cambodia: A US Navy warship arrived Monday in Cambodia, the first such visit in eight years to a nation that is China’s close ally in Southeast Asia. Cambodia’s government has suggested the port call reflects an upgrade in often-strained relations.
The USS Savannah docked at the port of Sihanoukville on the Gulf of Thailand for a five-day visit. The Savannah, classed as a Littoral Combat Ship, carries a crew of 103.
“It’s great to be back, returning US presence to here after eight years,” the ship’s commanding officer, Daniel A. Sledz, said in brief remarks to reporters. He was given a bouquet of flowers by a Cambodian officer and shook hands with a line of her colleagues.
The United States for many years has had rocky relations with Cambodia, criticizing its government for political repression and human rights violations. There is particular concern about its close ties with China, which Washington fears may get exclusive access to a Cambodian naval base on the Gulf of Thailand, not far from where the Savannah docked.
Recently, there seem to have been moves to patch up relations.
Cambodia’s Ministry of National Defense said last week that the visit was scheduled after a US request for a port call, and would “strengthen and expand the bonds of friendship as well as promote bilateral cooperation” between the two nations.
Two days before that, Cambodia’s foreign ministry noted “positive momentum of bilateral ties and cooperation” and “the reinvigoration of military-to-military cooperation” between Cambodia and the US
US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin visited Cambodia in early June, where he held talks with Prime Minister Hun Manet and other senior officials. He also met with Cambodian alumni of US military training programs. Hun Manet himself is a graduate of the US Military Academy at West Point.
The US Defense Department said at the time that Austin’s discussions concerned “opportunities to strengthen the US-Cambodia bilateral defense relationship in support of regional peace and security,” and other matters.
But Washington remains concerned that the upgrading of Cambodia’s Ream Naval Base near Sihanoukville will serve Beijing’s strategic interests in the region.
The US and others suggest China’s navy is establishing a permanent base at Ream, which would give it easier access to the Malacca Strait, a critical shipping route between the South China Sea and the Indian Ocean.
Controversy over the Chinese activity at Ream initially arose in 2019 when The Wall Street Journal reported that an early draft of an agreement seen by US officials would allow China 30-year use of the base, where it would be able to post military personnel, store weapons and berth warships.
Cambodia’s government has denied such an agreement or any intention to grant China special privileges at the base, though Beijing has funded its expansion.
In September, Cambodia’s Defense Ministry said that China is giving its navy two warships of the type it has had docked there for months. China is set to hand over two newly built Type 56 corvettes — smaller vessels typically used for coastal patrols — next year at the earliest, after Cambodia requested China’s support.
Cambodia’s defense ministry said the Savannah’s port call will include “a working meeting with the commander of the Ream Naval Base,” as well as meetings with provincial officials and “a friendship sports competition between the crews of the US Navy and the Cambodian Navy.”
Cambodian Navy Capt. Mean Savoeun, deputy commander of the Ream Naval Base, was among those dockside welcoming the Savannah to Sihanoukville. He said he was happy to see the good relationship between Cambodia and the US, especially their navies, and believed the visit will bring closer diplomatic cooperation.

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan began on Monday its last nationwide vaccination campaign for the year to protect 45 million children from polio after a surge in new cases hampered efforts to stop the disease, officials said.
According to the World Health Organization, Pakistan and neighboring Afghanistan remain the only two countries where the potentially fatal, paralyzing virus hasn’t been stopped,
Pakistan has reported 63 confirmed cases since January.
Ayesha Raza Farooq, the prime minister’s adviser for the polio eradication program, said the anti-polio drive will continue until Dec. 22.
“As a mother, I am appealing to you to open your doors for health workers,” she said.
Pakistan regularly launches such campaigns despite violence affecting medical personnel who oversee the vaccinations and security forces escorting them. Militants falsely claim that vaccination campaigns are a Western conspiracy to sterilize children.
Authorities deployed thousands of police officers to protect the health workers following intelligence reports that insurgents could target them. However, gunmen opened fire Monday on police escorting polio workers in Karak, a city in the restive Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, killing a police officer and wounding a health worker, local police official Ayaz Khan said.
More than 200 polio workers and police assigned for their protection have been killed since the 1990s, according to health officials and authorities.
The latest anti-polio drive campaign began a day after Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif met with medical staff and vowed that Pakistan would win the war against polio.
Afghanistan reported at least 23 confirmed cases in 2024, according to data from the World Health Organization.
In September, the Afghan Taliban suddenly stopped a door-to-door vaccination campaign in Afghanistan, a devastating setback for polio eradication as the virus is one of the world’s most infectious and any unvaccinated groups of children where the virus is spreading could undo years of progress.