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PHNOM PENH — U.S. embassy officials in Cambodia can leave if they do not like it there, a Cambodian government spokesman said on Thursday, following criticism by U.S. diplomats that the Southeast Asian nation’s 2018 election was deeply flawed.

Prime Minister Hun Sen’s ruling Cambodian People’s Party (CCP) won all 125 parliamentary seats in the election last year that rights groups said was neither free nor fair following the dissolution of the main opposition party.

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In a Facebook post on Tuesday marking a year since the vote, the U.S. embassy in Phnom Penh, the Cambodian capital, said the election had “failed to represent the will of the Cambodian people.”

U.S. officials should not make such “barbaric comments,” government spokesman Phay Siphan said in response.

“Although we are friends, if these officials don’t like Cambodia, they should pack up and leave. Let me be clear: We don’t welcome you,” Siphan told a regular news conference on Thursday.