U.S. top diplomat Blinken to travel to Cambodia next week

WASHINGTON, July 29 (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken will travel to Cambodia for a U.S.-ASEAN minister's meeting next week during which he will address the COVID-19 pandemic, climate change, Myanmar and the war in Ukraine, the State Department said on Friday.

After three meetingsrelating to the regional bloc in Phnom Penh on Aug. 3-5, Blinken will travel to Manila and meet with President Ferdinand Romualdez Marcos and Foreign Secretary Enrique Manalo to discuss efforts to strengthen the U.S.-Philippine alliance, officials said. Assistant Secretary of State for East Asia and Pacific Affairs Daniel Kritenbrink, briefing reporters on the trip, said Blinken would urge other nations at the regional forum to "step up pressure" on Myanmar's ruling junta after it executed four activists this week.

"This is just the latest example of the regime's brutality," he said of the executions.
There were no plans for Blinken to sit down with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, said Kritenbrink, who did not rule out an informal "pull aside" on the sidelines of the regional forum.

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