Meeting sets date for border survey

9/04/2009
By THANIDA TANSUBHAPOL
Bangkok Post

Thailand and Cambodia will start surveying their common boundary from Si Sa Ket to Surin province next month.

Vasin Teeravechyan, an adviser to Foreign Minister Kasit Piromya, said the boundary survey would follow the agreed minutes of the last two meetings of officials.

''Both countries have agreed that the joint field survey for the fact-finding mission on the condition and locations of boundary pillar 1 in Si Sa Ket to pillar 23 in Surin province could commence from May,'' Mr Vasin said after a two-day Joint Boundary Commission meeting in Phnom Penh earlier this week.

This was the third meeting of the commission. The earlier two meetings were held in November in Siem Reap and in February in Bangkok.

The agreements reached at the meetings would come into effect after they have parliamentary approval, Mr Vasin said.

Regarding the provisional agreement on border issues in the area of Preah Vihear temple, the countries agreed at the meeting on the name of the troops to monitor the temple and Wat Kaew Khiri Sikha Sawara Keo Sekha Kiri Svarak.

The troops will be called the ''Temporary Military Monitoring Group''.

''There remains only one pending issue to be further discussed, which is the name of the temple,'' he said.

Cambodia wants it called Preah Vihear while Thailand prefers Phra Viharn.