Thailand, Cambodia agree not to send troops to 2nd temple

SURIN, Aug 5 (TNA) -- Thailand and Cambodia, which have exchanged new claims over a second disputed temple ruin on their mutual border, agreed Tuesday not to dispatch troops into the area in order to ease tensions along the border.

The agreement was reached following a closed-door half-an-hour talk between Maj-Gen. Kanok Netrakawesana, commander of Thailand's Suranaree Task Force, and San Wanna, deputy governor of Cambodia's Uddor Meanchey province, at the Task Force headquarters in Kap Choeng border district of Surin province.

Deputy Governor San Wanna later told journalists that the talks were held in a "positive atmosphere" and there would be no more problem. The Cambodian governor said the two countries agreed not to send troops into the disputed area.

The two neighbours are now locked in new unneighbourliness over the Ta Muen Thom ruins, which Thailand claims sits in the Thai border district of Phanom Dong Rak in the northeastern province of Surin, and Cambodia argues is in Cambodia's Uddor Meanchey province.

Tensions in the area heightened after Gen. Boonsang Niempradit, Thai supreme commander, on Monday asked Cambodia to withdraw its soldiers from the temple environs. The demarcation boundary between the two countries has not yet been settled by the Thailand-Cambodia General Border Committee (GBC).

A Thai foreign ministry spokesman has said the Ta Muen Thom ruin is only one of a number of sites along the unclear boundary between the two countries. Thailand is trying to conduct its actions under the framework of the GBC, he said, and the temple problem should also be discussed under that mechanism.

Thai Fine Arts officials at Ta Muen Thom ruin said Tuesday that Cambodians frequently visited the ruins, especially during April. The number of tourists visiting the site has now increased following reports on tensions in the area.

Theerawat Sudsook, Phanom Dong Rak district officer, said the overall situation along the common border in the district was still normal and that residents on both sides of the border were still communicating with each other normally.

On Monday last week, foreign ministers of the two countries agreed at a meeting in Cambodia's Siem Reap province to redeploy their troops at Preah Vihear ancient temple and the area surrounding it in an attempt to reduce tensions along the border, but until the Thai Cabinet met Tuesday, neither side showed any sign of making the first move.

The Cabinet agreed "in principle" to reduce the presence of its military in the vicinity of the temple tension point on the border. However, Thai government spokesman Wichianchot Sukchotrat indicated no timetable or the numbers of troops to be pulled back from the frontier.

The International Court of Justice awarded Preah Vihear temple to Cambodia in 1962.
More than one thousand troops from both countries are still at Preah Vihear. (TNA)