From Ker Munthit in Phnom Penh

A SENIOR American official urged Cambodian and foreign judges yesterday to put aside their squabble over legal fees and move forward with the much-delayed Khmer Rouge genocide tribunal.

"The Khmer Rouge tribunal is really the opportunity for Cambodia to show the international community how far it has advanced," said Eric G John, the US deputy assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs.

"And it would be a shame not to be able to show how far it's advanced by letting this tribunal get hung up on what is a relatively down-in-the-weeds monetary issue," he said at the end of a four-day visit to Cambodia.

On Friday, Cambodian judges for the UN-backed genocide tribunal blamed their international peers for delaying the trials, which were due to start this year.

Foreign judges decided earlier this week to boycott an April 30 meeting meant to adopt rules that will guide the trials. Their decision was prompted by the refusal of the Cambodian Bar Association to reverse a decision to impose high legal fees on foreign lawyers wishing to serve at the tribunal.

The foreign judges have described the $4900 (£2500) charge as prohibitive and said it would allow the accused to argue that they have not been afforded the right to have counsel of their choice, in breach of international agreements on civil and political rights.

The Cambodian judges said, in a statement on Friday, they regretted the foreign judges' decision, which "would further delay the process of the court".

Many fear that internal disputes could delay efforts to bring the Khmer Rouge's few surviving leaders to trial for crimes against humanity for the deaths of about 1.7 million people during the group's 1975-79 rule.