Cambodia's king undergoing treatment for prostate cancer

Cambodia's King Norodom Sihamoni said on Friday he has been diagnosed with prostate cancer and is undergoing treatment in China.

Sihamoni, 72, who has been Cambodia's monarch since the 2004 abdication of his late father Norodom Sihanouk, said he would extend his stay in Beijing for between one and three months on the advice of his doctors.

"Esteemed compatriots, please be informed that following the most careful and thorough medical examination by the team of doctors at a hospital in Beijing, People's Republic of China, it has been confirmed that I am currently suffering from prostate cancer," Sihamoni said in a statement that was shared by the information ministry.

While father Sihanouk was a pre-eminent figure who held considerable influence in Cambodia in the early part of his reign following its 1953 declaration of independence from France, the monarchy's role is now largely ceremonial, with former Prime Minister Hun Sen the country's dominant figure for most of the past four decades.

Sihamoni is a former dance choreographer who studied for more than a decade in the former Czechoslovakia, specializing in performing arts then later teaching ballet at various conservatories in France in the 1980s.

He served as Cambodia's ambassador to the United Nations in the early 1990s before moving to Paris to become its permanent representative to UNESCO, the UN's culture and education agency. He returned to Phnom Penh in 2004 to become king.

Father Sihanouk had also suffered from cancer, among other ailments, and also received treatment in Beijing, to which he relocated after his abdication and resided until his death in 2012 from heart failure, age 89. — Reuters