Thursday, July 02, 2009

Suwit Khunkitti admitted Preah Vihear had already been listed as a world heritage site: Thailand wishy-washy claims

Suwit defends his Preah Vihear role

2/07/2009
BangkokPost.com

Natural Resources and Environment Minister Suwit Khunkitti on Thursday insisted he was able to get Thailand about one year of extra time to raise its concerns over the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation's (Unesco) listing of Preah Vihear temple as a world heritage site.

Mr Suwit admitted Preah Vihear had already been listed as a world heritage site, as Pongpol Adireksarn, former chairman of the Thai World Heritage Committee, had said.

But Cambodia had yet to formally complete its obligations by presenting a management plan for safeguarding and developing the temple, including a map of the buffer zone around the site.

Because of Thailand's opposition to the listing, coupled with Cambodia's inability to submit its plan by February this year, the WHC decided to give Cambodia until next February to do so.

This has given Thailand the opportunity to raise its concerns over its border dispute with Cambodia, said Mr Suwit.

Mr Suwit said Unesco has been told the two countries have not been able to settle their border dispute. "We need to explore ways of settling the dispute to end the Thai-Cambodian conflict over the listing of Preah Vihear," he added.

Asked whether Thailand would try to seek a bilateral listing of the temple, Mr Suwit said this could be done only after the disputed border has been clearly demarcated.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Still though, it is shameful for Cambodia for not being able to submit the proposal by February. We have enough experts to help, but the government had never asked us for so doing. Are they looking for their own relatives to fill even these positions?

Anonymous said...

No kidding. Is Hun Sen busy at school to complete his work for his PhD that he have no time to commit to this? Somebody should get fired or something here.

Anonymous said...

Don't just talk from increase to reduce, from reduce to increase forces, just setup the military position and fight.

To see who has the most advantage between the US master and Hanoi Master?

Let's set this game on the betting board and let's everyone bet...

I Bet 50,000 US dollars "Thai will open fight on Cambodian side first" and possible invasion to conquer cambodia to replace Cambodia from Hanoi's influence to Bangcock's new ruler.

Ponlue said...

THAILAND NOW IS LIKE A MAD DOG ON A STREET. SO DO NOT TAKE CARE WHAT IT SAYS (BARK), BUT HAVE TO BE CAREFUL WHAT IT ACTS (BITE).

Anonymous said...

the thai thugs is trying to take advantage of cambodia by interfering in our listing of our sovereignty, the preah vihear temple and surrounding access areas, of course. there is a clear violation on thailand's unruly gov't part. they will be responsible for problem with cambodia. they will be sue big time, watch! never heard of any ancient khmer temple ruins without as easy access way for khmer to go to our temple. only the drugged brained thai claim such a thing! i'm sure our ancient khmer god-kings built or constructed our temple with access way within cambodia; for the stupid, ignorant siem thugs to claim that easy access way is from thailand is only lunatic race of people would claim such thing like that! go to hell, siem thugs! god bless cambodia.

Anonymous said...

cambodia don't care what the siem thugs are saying. so far we haven't heard any negative remark from unesco themselves about any delay of cambodia's listing of our preah vihear temple as world heritage site like the siem thugs are claiming that we did not submit plan of our conservation. another siem's naked tactic. we don't buy that! plus, we have no many alternatives to conserve our temple without any so-called joint management with siem thugs! in short, we do not need nor want siem thugs to joint manage our temple in the first place, never!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!