[Hillary Clinton's] Town Hall With Cambodian Youth

Hillary Rodham Clinton
Secretary of State
Chaktomuk Theater
Phnom Penh, Cambodia
November 1, 2010

SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, I am delighted to be here with all of you and I thank you very much for being here on a holiday and participating in this town hall. Kalyan, thank you so much for an excellent job. And Minister of Education, thank you so much for being here with us, and our ambassador as well. I have come to Cambodia for the first time, but it is a destination I have long wanted to visit. And I especially, was moved by the reports of my husband’s visit in 2006 when he returned home with stories of the progress that is being – happening here now that I wanted to see with my own eyes.

I am very pleased that we have a chance now in 2010 to talk in a very open way about not only Cambodia’s future and especially for the young people like yourselves, but the partnership between Cambodia and the United States. We are very committed in my country to working with you to provide more young people with opportunities like student exchanges or Fulbright scholarships or other fellowships, a chance to study and learn in the United States, and we want to encourage more Americans to come to Cambodia to see for themselves and to experience the warmth and graciousness of the Cambodian people.

I also hope that we can have some ideas from you about what you would like to see the partnership between the United States and Cambodia to be like in the years ahead. As I look at this audience, I realize that many of you were not born when I was in school, and you were not born when your country was locked in a civil war. You have an opportunity to rewrite the future, and that’s what I think is so important about what is happening in Cambodia today. The great history, the culture, the arts, the legendary generosity of the Cambodian people is something that will always be with you. But it will be up to the young people to decide how to chart that new future.