No agreed settlement but ... Paris Conference on Cambodia clears path towards peace.

• Position: Includes related information on Vietnamese troop withdrawals

Secretary-General Javier Perez de Cuellar, after the month-long Conference on Peace in Cambodia (Paris, 30 July-30 August), said the meeting had cleared a path towards peace in that country. Cambodian parties, he said, must now travel that path, for the salvation of their people and their country", and if they did so, the Conference would "really have been an historic turning-point for Cambodia".

It was "truly unfortunate", he said, that agreement was not reached on a global settlement. "The ship has not reached the shores of peace, even though it has caught occasional glimpses of them", he said.

The Conference, he said, had "done a remarkable technical job, allowing the foundations to be laid for an overall settlement" of the Cambodian problem. He cited in particular discussions on the international control mechanism, on the cease-fire and on safeguards.

A 15-member preliminary fact-finding mission was sent to the country from 6 to 19 August, led by Lt.-Gen. Martin Vadset, Chief of Staff of the United Nations Truce Supervision Organization (UNTSO). It gathered on-site technical data to identify logistical problems affecting possible deployment of an international control mechanism. Mr. Perez de Cuellar stressed that the creation of a credible international control mechanism was directly contingent upon the identification of a clear and realistic mandate, the adoption of an effective decision-making process and the provision of the necessary human, logistical and financial resources.

He welcomed the unanimous agreement on a concerted plan of action for the recovery and reconstruction of Cambodia as part of an overall settlement.

The UN system, he said, would assist the Cambodian people in reconstruction efforts, supplying its experience...