Archive for August 7th, 2008
Thai troops still at Ta Muen Thom, general says
By Supalak Ganjanakhundee
The Nation
Published on August 7, 2008
Thai troops remain at the disputed border area near Ta Muen Thom temple, despite a claim by a senior Cambodian official they had withdrawn.
“We are stationed at Prasart Ta Muen Thom to protect our sovereignty as usual,” said Major Gen Kanok Netrakavaesana, commander of the Suranaree Task Force, who oversees the area. He spoke by phone from Surin late yesterday.
Cambodian Defence Minister Tea Banh told reporters in Phnom Penh earlier that both sides agreed to withdraw troops from the temple after a brief talks involving commanders on the ground.
“But we have already resolved the problem with each other. It is okay now. All (Cambodian and Thai) troops withdrew to their original bases,” he was quoted saying.
Tea Banh, however, maintained that Ta Muen Thom belonged to Cambodia.
Kanok said the Cambodian minister had misunderstood the situation. Officials from both sides met on Tuesday at the “coordinating point” at the border and later returned to the temple, as usual, without any agreement.
“The situation is calm, nothing changes and we are where we are,” the Thai commander said.
Attention has turned to a second disputed temple area, following the military stand-off near Preah Vihear temple, some 120 kilometres away. The latest row surrounds Khmer ruins at Ta Muen Thom.
Cambodia has alleged that Thailand sent some 70 troops to the temple and barring Cambodian soldiers from entering. Cambodia then massed troops in the area nearby. Phnom Penh has called on Thailand to pull its troops out.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Tharit Charungvat said that Ta Muen temples was on Thai soil and that Thai troops had been stationed there for years.
Cambodia “might misunderstand” the location of the temple, he said, because the old boundary mark demarcated a century ago had disappeared.
Thailand lodged an official protest in March this year after Cambodia listed Ta Muen one of its sites, Tharit said.
The new dispute could be settled by a bilateral mechanism such as the Joint Border Committee, he said.
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Thai and Cambodian foreign ministers to meet over border row
Bangkok Post – August 06, 2008
Phnom Penh – Foreign Minister Tej Bunnag will host his Cambodian counterpart Foreign Minister Hor Namhong in another effort to settle the potentially explosive border dispute, Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen said Wednesday.
In a speech broadcast on state radio, Hun Sen said talks between Hor Namhong and Bunnag would be held in Hua Hin, where His Majesty the King of Thailand has a seaside palace.
“Hor Namhong will meet his Thai counterpart … on Aug 18. Hor Namhong will then” have an audience with His Majesty, Hun Sen said at a rice farming ceremony in the southwestern province of Kampong Speu, 40 kilometres west of the capital.
Cambodia had earlier said no further talks on disputed territory around the World Heritage-listed border temple of Preah Vihear and the Ta Moan Thom temple would be held until a new government was formed, probably in September.
However, with Hun Sen’s Cambodian People’s Party’s efforts to form a coalition appearing to go more smoothly than after any previous election, talks had been moved forward.
Hun Sen said Cambodia sought to take the situation back to how it had been before July 15, when Thai troops moved into overlapping territory surrounding the temple, eight days after Preah Vihear was granted its World Heritage status by Unesco.
“At the pagoda we ask only Buddhist nuns, laymen and Buddhist monks stay – not troops from either side,” Hun Sen said.
“I would like to respectfully inform the Thai king that if any other Cambodian except Hun Sen was prime minister, there would be war on the border since July 15 … but not me.”
“I would like to appeal to everybody to please, not expand the dispute but reduce it … I am strong enough to lead a war. I was a soldier … but the best resolution is not to fight. How many die?”
“Fighting is easy – it’s ending the fight that is difficult,” Hun Sen said. (dpa)
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