Talks fail to end Thai-Cambodia temple row

21 Jul 2008
Source: Reuters
(Recasts with end of talks)

By Nopporn Wong-Anan

ARANYAPRATHET, Thailand, July 21 (Reuters) - Talks between Thailand and Cambodia failed on Monday to end a military stand-off over an ancient temple on their border, which regional neighbours feared could turn violent.

Hundreds of troops facing each other at the temple for the past week will hold their positions, Thai and Cambodian negotiators said after eight hours of talks.

"The best option is to stay where they are, but avoid using weapons," Supreme Commander Boonsrang Niumpradit told reporters.

Cambodian Defence Minister Tea Banh said "it is impossible to find a solution at this second", but negotiations would continue at a later date.

The meeting took place in the Thai border town of Aranyaprathet, 380 km (235 miles) from the 11th century temple awarded to Cambodia by an international court in 1962. That ruling still rankles Thais.

At the heart of the dispute is a 4.6 sq km (1.8 sq mile) area around the temple, which sits on a jungle-clad escarpment that forms a natural boundary, that is claimed by both nations.

Cambodia complained to the United Nations Security Council on Friday about Thailand's violation of Cambodia's "sovereignty and territorial integrity", but did not ask the U.N. to intervene.

In a sign of easing tensions, soldiers at the site had agreed on Monday to keep weapons out of the temple itself, Cambodian commander Chea Mon said.

"We do not want any armed troops to disturb Buddhist monks who are praying there," he told Reuters.

NEIGHBOURS URGE RESTRAINT

The stand-off has revived memories of a 2003 spat over Cambodia's famed Angkor Wat temple complex, which saw a mob set fire to the Thai embassy in Phnom Penh, and worried neighbours.
The 10-country Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) urged members Thailand and Cambodia to show "utmost caution and restraint" and offered to help resolve the impasse.

Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, opening the annual ASEAN meeting in the city state, said the "situation has escalated dangerously" and the group "could not stand idly by without damaging its credibility".

Analysts say domestic politics in Thailand, where the temple is known as Khao Pra Viharn, have played a big role in fuelling the border fracas.

Preah Vihear's listing as a World Heritage site this month triggered political uproar in Bangkok, where the People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD) accused the government of selling out Thailand's history by initially backing the listing.

The PAD, a coalition of activists and royalists, is waging a street campaign against Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej, whom they accuse of acting as a proxy for former premier Thaksin Shinawatra, ousted in a coup in 2006.

"The PAD will use any tool, any instrument to bring down the Samak government. Khao Pra Viharn is a casualty of Thailand's domestic political crisis," Thitinan Pongsudhirak, a foreign affairs lecturer at Chulalongkorn University, told Reuters.

(Additional reporting by Ek Madra in Phnom Penh and Melanie Lee in Singapore) (Writing by Darren Schuettler; Editing by Alan Raybould and Roger Crabb)