U.S. to Open Talks With Cambodia : Southeast Asia: It is Washington’s second dramatic move in two months as it seeks to end an 11-year civil war.

WASHINGTON —  Secretary of State James A. Baker III said today that the United States has decided to open direct talks with Cambodia’s communist government to help speed efforts to end an 11-year-old civil war in the Southeast Asian nation.

Praising Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen for taking a constructive position recently, Baker told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee:

“In order to try and support this process as much as we can, we have decided that we’ll take the next logical step and we will begin a dialogue with Hun Sen’s representatives through our (charge d’affaires) in Vientiane,” the Laotian capital.

He spoke as representatives of the warring factions in Cambodia’s civil war arrived in Jakarta, Indonesia, for peace talks set to begin Thursday.

The decision to begin talks with Hun Sen was the second dramatic U.S. move on Cambodia in less than two months. On July 18, Baker announced that Washington will begin talks about Cambodia with Vietnam, Hun Sen’s major backer.

At the same time, he withdrew recognition of an alliance of guerrilla movements fighting the Hun Sen government dominated by the Khmer Rouge, which is blamed for the deaths of about 1 million people when it held power in Cambodia in the late 1970s.

Efforts to get all the warring factions around a bargaining table in Jakarta have proved difficult.

By today, after days of squabbling, leaders of the three guerrilla factions and a senior official of the Phnom Penh government had arrived or were due to arrive there.

“Our duty is to come. We have to take notice of efforts to end this war,” guerrilla coalition Prime Minister Son Sann, the first leader to arrive, said today.

His nominal allies Prince Norodom Ranariddh and Khmer Rouge leader Khieu Samphan were due to arrive today, reversing an earlier decision to boycott the talks if Hun Sen did not come.

However, Prince Norodom Sihanouk, the coalition’s titular leader, has decided not to attend the meeting.

Hor Nam Hong, a close confidant of Hun Sen in charge of foreign affairs, is due to arrive as representative of the Phnom Penh government.

Indonesian Foreign Minister Ali Alatas was meeting faction leaders to search for a compromise that would make any meeting worthwhile.