The United States is urging Cambodia to allow diverse participation in next year’s general elections and to release women imprisoned last month for protesting a property development. State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said on Wednesday that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told her Cambodian counterpart, Foreign Minister Hor Namhong, the previous day that the Southeast Asian country should allow “appropriate participation across the political spectrum” in the 2013 elections. She also raised the issue of 13 women who were sentenced to two-and-a-half years in prison for protesting their eviction from the land where their homes once stood.