``The Royal Government of Cambodia has taken strong and firm measures to
crack down on drug trafficking, as a result we arrested many drug
traffickers,'' Secretary of State for Information Khieu Kanharith said in a
letter to the Washington Post.

Copies of the letter were distributed by the information ministry.

The letter was in response to a report in the newspaper that cited Western
antinarcotics officials and Cambodian sources as saying Second Prime
Minister Hun Sen had surrounded himself with suspected drug traffickers who
bankrolled his projects, gave him gifts and sought to turn Cambodia into a
``narcostate.''

U.S. State Department Spokesman Nicholas Burns said the United States had no
evidence linking Hun Sen to drug trafficking.

But Burns said the United States had reliable reports that the president of
the Phnom Penh Chamber of Commerce and prominent Hun Sen supporter, Theng
Bunma, was a drug trafficker and would probably be excluded from the United
States.

``We think the Cambodian government can do a lot more to purge itself of
obvious corruption in the government, of obvious linkages between the
government itself, members of government, and narcotraffickers,'' Burns said
earlier this week.

Khieu Kanharith said Theng Bunma had contributed money to government projects
and won a bid to supply rice to the armed forces, but had never paid salaries
for government troops.

Cambodia's drug trafficking problems were highlighted last year when police
and customs in Europe, Africa and Australia seized almost 60 tonnes of
marijuana in containers that came from Cambodia.

International antinarcotics officials say heroin from Burma is smuggled
through Cambodia to the world market.

Last year, the U.S. placed Cambodia on its list of leading drug trafficking
nations.

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