As planned, Cambodia will conduct first ever large scale military exercise next week, a part of the United Nations Peacekeeping framework for strengthening peace and security.



Chhum Socheat, spokesman of the Ministry of National Defense said Saturday that the military exercise will be conducted on July 17 through July 30 with participations of 26 countries and more than 1,000 forces.



Of those forces, the largest number will be coming from Cambodia as a host country and from the United States, the co- organizer of the exercise.



The other participating countries, the majority of which are the members of the United Nations include France, Indonesia, the Philippines, Australia, India, Italy, Germany, Japan, Mongolia and the United Kingdom among others.



According to the plan, Chhum Socheat said the military exercise which is part of the Global Peace Operations Initiatives (GPOI), a UN-US peacekeeping-training program will be conducted in two separate forms with one to be organized in Kompong Speu province, about 50 kilometers from Phnom Penh, and that will be a field exercise.



The second of its kind will be conducted in Phnom Penh as part of the far command from headquarters.



The military exercise in Cambodia will be called as "Angkor Sentinel 2010".



Source:Xinhua