UNITED NATIONS -- Cambodia on Tuesday delayed for a day a second round of talks with the United Nations on the creation of a special tribunal to try former Khmer Rouge leaders blamed for about 1.7 million deaths.

The talks, originally set to resume on Tuesday afternoon, were rescheduled for Wednesday at 11 A.M. EST (1600 GMT) at the request of the Cambodian delegation, a UN spokeswoman said.

The Cambodians needed more time to prepare their documents, a member of the delegation later told Reuters.

The delay came on a day Cambodians celebrated the anniversary of their liberation from the horror of the Khmer Rouge "killing fields." An estimated 1.7 million people died under the Khmer Rouge's bloody rule, many through torture, execution, starvation and disease.

About 5,000 people, including saffron-robed monks, gathered at the Phnom Penh headquarters of the ruling Cambodian People's Party to honor those who died under the brutal ultra-Maoist regime, which was toppled in 1979 by invading Vietnamese troops.

A team of Cambodian negotiators met their UN counterparts in New York on Monday for three hours of "exploratory talks" in search of agreement on a plan for special international courts to try senior Khmer Rouge leaders for the atrocities committed during their rule.

The United Nations had pulled out of the project 11 months ago, concluding after nearly five years of talks that the courts as envisioned by Cambodia could not ensure fair trials.

But the United Nations resumed negotiations at the request of the 191-nation UN General Assembly. The assembly asked Secretary General Kofi Annan to report to it by March 18 on any progress that has been made.