Thailand and Cambodia claim success at UN Security Council talks

Feb 15, 2011
DPA

Bangkok/Phnom Penh - Thailand and Cambodia both claimed victory after a United Nations Security Council (UNSC) meeting in New York to discuss their conflict near an 11th-century Hindu temple on their common border.

'We were successful in our explanation to the UNSC,' Foreign Minister Kasit Piromya told the Thai News Agency.

Thailand's main objective at Monday's meeting was to block Cambodian efforts to get the council involved and keep the issue bilateral.

But Cambodian Foreign Ministry spokesman Koy Kuong said Kasit's claims did not stand up to scrutiny.

'Actually this was a victory for the Cambodian side,' he said. 'The Security Council met following the request by (Cambodian) Prime Minister Hun Sen.'

'And on the statement by the Security Council, I did not see any point where it urged the parties back to the bilateral mechanism,' Koy Kuong said. 'So I don9t know what Mr Kasit means about success.'

A statement by the council released after the meeting expressed 'grave concern' at the clashes and called on both sides 'to display maximum restraint.'

The council called for a permanent ceasefire and said both nations should resolve the matter by talking. It gave its support for ongoing efforts by the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN) to broker a solution.

Foreign ministers from the 10-member bloc will meet on February 22 in Jakarta, Indonesia, to discuss the border conflict, which claimed nine lives earlier this month and has displaced at least 25,000 people.

Kasit said Cambodia had not yet accepted the council's position of non-involvement.

In his presentation Kasit accused Cambodia of instigating the confrontation from February 4 to 7 in an effort to push through the UNESCO World Heritage Site listing process for Preah Vihear temple before a dispute over land adjacent to the temple had been settled.

But Phnom Penh rejected that, and said the build-up of Thai forces along the border showed Bangkok was trying to provoke a fight.

'That is why we asked the Security Council to have an urgent meeting - we want a permanent ceasefire,' Koy Kuong said. 'Any mechanism that can be used to solve the problem, we accept.'

Bangkok has blamed UNESCO for exacerbating the dispute with its 2008 decision to list Preah Vihear as a heritage site despite objections from Thailand.

The International Court of Justice ruled in 1962 that the temple belonged to Cambodia, but stopped short of determining the border demarcation in the contested area.

Both countries claim a 4.6-square-kilometre plot of land near the site, which has been included under Cambodia's management plan for the World Heritage Committee.

Thailand wants UNESCO to delay any decision on the master plan at its upcoming meeting in Bahrain until the dispute is settled.

It is urging Cambodia to resume bilateral talks under the Joint Border Committee (JBC) set up in 2000 to negotiate disputes over border demarcation.

Phnom Penh has said it would not resume JBC talks, which have failed to solve the Preah Vihear conflict over the past decade.