ReutersCambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen said on Tuesday he wanted to remove from the statute books a criminal defamation law which human right activists say he has been using to silence critics.
"We'll do this in the interest of national reconciliation and joining hands to solve the issue of poverty," Hun Sen said just days after opposition leader Sam Rainsy returned home from self-exile during which he was sentenced to jail under that law.
Hun Sen, speaking at a graduation ceremony, said removing the law would improve freedom of speech, a subject on which he has been criticised widely, including by the United States and other aid donors.
Defamation should be a civil action under which those found guilty would have to pay compensation, Hun Sen said after making up with Rainsy, for whom he requested a royal pardon which paved the way for his return from France.
Sam Rainsy said after arriving in Phnom Penh all disputes with Hun Sen, a former Khmer Rouge soldier who has run Cambodia for 20 years, were over and said politicians would now work together to overcome the country's myriad problems.
Decriminalising defamation will require action in Parliament, where Hun Sen has a solid majority, and Justice Minister Ang Vong Vathana said it would be done.
"Of course. Whatever the Prime Minister said, we can do," he told reporters.
Hun Sen's call drew swift applause from western countries which have been in the forefront of the criticism abroad of his use of criminal defamation.
"If the criminal defamation is struck from the law, then obviously it is a welcome step which will encourage the opposition to improve dialogue and activities between political parties and within civil society," British Ambassador David Reader told Reuters.
US ambassador Joseph A Mussomeli said: "Criminal defamation is a bad tool. It impedes the progress of freedom and democracy."
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