So far, so good

Yingluck's brief Cambodia trip underlines warmer relations, but settling offshore oil issues won't be easy.

19/09/2011

James O'Toole

Bangkok Post

PHNOM PENH : As Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra returned to Thailand after what would be counted as a successful trip, analysts are warning that the newly elected premier to watchful of her actions as some could be viewed as being not transparent.

Ms Yingluck on Thursday held talks on a wide range of issues from the possible release of the two Thais imprisoned in Cambodia to the issue of petroleum exploration in a joint development area.

For all their squabbling in recent years, the two countries have much to gain by mending their relationship, and nowhere is this more clear than in the so-called Overlapping Claims Area (OCA) in the Gulf of Thailand.

Cambodia and Thailand signed a memorandum of understanding in 2001 on joint development of the southern portion of the roughly 27,000-square-kilometre disputed area, with the northern portion to be divided by a defined maritime border. Bangkok cancelled this agreement in 2009, however, in protest over the appointment of Ms Yingluck's brother Thaksin as an economic adviser to the Cambodian government.

Leaders from the two sides spent much of the following two years sniping at one another and even withdrew their respective ambassadors for a time, leading many to conclude that any possibility of resolving the OCA issue was dead for the time being.

New revelations from the Cambodian government, however, suggest that behind all the sabre-rattling rhetoric, the administrations of Abhisit Vejjajiva and Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen had been making attempts to look past their disagreements in view of the potential bounty at sea.

In a statement last month, Cambodia's National Petroleum Authority claimed the Abhisit administration had initiated a series of "secret" talks on the issue during the past few years.

"During these meetings, [former deputy prime minister] Suthep Thaugsuban indicated a strong preference to resolve this issue during the mandate of the Abhisit government," the Petroleum Authority said.

Mr Suthep has claimed that Cambodian officials initiated the talks in question, and that there was no policy of secrecy surrounding them. Nevertheless, given the sensitivity of territorial issues, it would be understandable if Thai officials did indeed seek to keep the talks under wraps.

In the wake of the claims from Cambodia, Ms Yingluck reportedly dispatched Foreign Minister Surapong Towichukchaikul to investigate the nature of the meetings. While the Cambodian Petroleum Authority said there had been no formal attempt to restart negotiations as yet by the new government in Bangkok, the statement added that Phnom Penh "would welcome the resumption of open and official negotiation on this issue and will pursue such a course as soon as practicable".

Cambodian Deputy Prime Minister Sok An reiterated this stance during a press conference in Phnom Penh earlier this month, saying Cambodia was "looking forward to having productive and open public discussions [on the overlapping claims area] with the new Thai administration led by Prime Minister Yingluck".

"We shouldn't keep our black gold in the bay - we need to extract it," he added.

Whether the Yingluck administration can muster the same enthusiasm is another matter.

Songpop Polachan, director-general of Thailand's Department of Mineral Fuels, said recently that his office was preparing information on the issue for the new energy minister in preparation for new negotiations with Cambodia. Particularly following the armed clashes at the border between the two countries earlier this year, however, any territorial agreement is liable to draw fierce criticism from some quarters in Thai society.

"I'm always wary as to how palatable such a settlement will be with the Thai public in particular, as my feeling is that any settlement on the OCA will always be exploited by some as a sell-out of Thai sovereignty to the Cambodians," said Chris Larkin, managing director of the market intelligence firm CLC Asia.

"Given these dynamics, I think negotiations will always be politically difficult for any Thai government, no matter how friendly it is with Cambodia."

In the past, disagreements during formal talks on the issue have centred on the model for revenue sharing. Cambodia has called for the OCA to be divided in a checkerboard fashion, creating 14 blocks in which revenues and management responsibilities would be shared equally.

Thailand has countered by suggesting that the area be divided into thirds, with revenues from the western third split 80-20% in favour of Thailand, the middle third split 50-50, and the eastern third split 80-20 for Cambodia.

A 2007 cable from the US embassy in Phnom Penh released by WikiLeaks suggests that the two sides were at one point close to a deal along the lines of what Thailand had proposed: a 50-50 split in the middle block and 80-20 in the eastern and western blocks.

Kao Kim Hourn, a secretary of state at Cambodia's Foreign Ministry, reportedly told American diplomats that six more months of talks "would have settled the matter", but that negotiations had been put on hold following the 2006 coup that ousted Thaksin.

As Ms Yingluck attempts to move forward on the issue, she must be wary of how it plays in Thailand's domestic politics, said Pavin Chachavalpongpun, a fellow at Singapore's Institute of Southeast Asian Studies.

"Ms Yingluck has to ensure that the process is transparent to avoid her enemies [questioning] her policy toward Cambodia," Mr Pavin said. "She has to ensure also that Thaksin will not be a part of this process."

Ms Yingluck has said that she would be as transparent in the negotiations as can be while the opposition Democrat party has also asked the public to be vigilant of the government's working on this aspect.