Sihanouk Returns to Cambodia After Cancer Treatment

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia —  King Norodom Sihanouk, who has been ailing with prostate cancer, returned to his homeland Wednesday for the first time in more than seven months.

He was greeted on his arrival from Beijing by Cambodia’s co-prime ministers, Norodom Ranariddh and Hun Sen, and other officials. But with no parades or marching bands, his welcome was low-key compared with previous occasions.

Sihanouk, 72, left Cambodia in May to undergo chemotherapy in China. “I am fine now . . . but I am on a diet . . . and I miss you very much,” said Sihanouk, who touched the hands of all the waiting officials.

As the leading political figure since before independence in 1953, Sihanouk is considered the country’s most influential person. The FUNCINPEC party, led by Ranariddh, his son, finished first in a 1993 U.N.-supervised general election by closely identifying itself with Sihanouk and the monarchy, which had been abolished in 1970. Sihanouk took the throne again in late 1993.