Cambodia on Wednesday pinned the government's honorable medal decoration to ASEAN Secretary General Surin Pitsuwan for his efforts to develop ties between ASEAN and Cambodia.

Surin was bestowed one of the country's highest decorations -- the Grand Cross of the Sahakmetrey Order. Cambodian Minister of Commerce Cham Prasidh, on behalf of the government, awarded the decoration to him.

Surin will complete his term as secretary-general of ASEAN on Dec. 31, 2012, Kao Kim Hourn, Cambodian secretary of state at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said last Sunday.

Vietnamese Deputy Foreign Minister Le Luong Minh will be his successor as the next secretary-general of ASEAN for a new 2013- 2017 term.

The award was made just a day after Cambodia successfully hosted the 21st ASEAN Summit and related Summits on Nov. 18-20.

The Summits were attended by the leaders of the ten-member ASEAN and eight ASEAN's dialogue country leaders including U.S. President Barack Obama, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, South Korean President Lee Myung-bak, Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard, New Zealand Prime Minister John Key, and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.