No Schedule Abhisit-Hun Sen Meeting During Asean

BANGKOK, May 4 (Bernama) -- There is no schedule for Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva to meet his Cambodian counterpart Hun Sen during the forthcoming Asean Summit in Jakarta, amidst the calm situation at the border Wednesday.

Abhisit said he would let the ministerial level meeting discuss the clashes at the Thai-Cambodian border since April 22, and later he would follow-up on its development.

"We have to wait and see the development from the ministerial level meeting first before the leaders' summit as the whole picture will be much clearer then," he said.

To date, Abhisit has scheduled to meet his counterparts from Indonesia, Vietnam and Laos on the sidelines of the summit which will be held on May 7 and 8.

He said, even if his meeting with Hun Sen took place, there was no guarantee that clashes would come to an end or fresh clashes would not trigger in future.

"Don't forget, I met Hun Sen four times at the end of last year but there were many clashes in February.

"I always insist that every clash did not accidentally occur but it was the intention of Cambodia to raise the problem to international level," said Abhisit.

Asked whether his meeting with Hun Sen -- if it took place later -- would be considered as not useful, Abhisit said: "I cannot answer that question today as I have to see development at the (Asean) meeting."

Eleven soldiers and a civilian were killed and more than 120 others injured from the Thai side since skirmishes started two weeks ago.

More than 40,000 villagers in Surin, Si Sa Ket and Rum Buri had to be evacuated, following clashes at the three provinces which are located near the border.

However, the situation at the border remained calm today with no clash reported between troops of both countries as thousands of villagers began returning to their homes.

Thailand and Cambodia share an 800km borderline but certain stretches of the border, including the areas where clashes occurred, have yet to be fully demarcated.

They have traded accusations against each other, of starting the clash first and trying to invade their respective territories.

Phnom Penh has sought the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to interpret its 1962 judgement on sovereign territories in the 1,000-year-old Preah Vihear Hindu Temple.

The ICJ has ruled that the temple is located in Cambodia but Bangkok and Phnom Penh claimed an area of 4.6sq km surrounding the temple which was designated by Unesco as a world heritage site in 2008.

Ceasefire negotiations involving ground military officials from both sides managed to halt shelling activities as clashes continued with the use of small arms only.

The border situation returned to calm today, for the first time after 14 days of skirmishes.