Prawit, Army chief on 'urgent' Cambodia visit
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DEPUTY PRIME Minister Prawit Wongsuwan and Army chief General Udomdej Sitabutr yesterday headed to Cambodia for an urgent visit, which sources said was related to border affairs.
The press was banned from covering the departure of Prawit and his delegation from Don Mueang Airport, while reporters on the military beat heard nothing about the mission.
However, a source said Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha had commissioned Prawit, who is also defence minister, to take care of border-demarcation issue with Cambo-dia. On December 9, Prawit was reportedly appointed to co-chair the Thai-Cambodian Joint Boundary Commission (JBC), replacing former career diplomat Bundit Sotiplarit.
Prawit is expected to speak to his Cambodian counterpart about the demarcation of 800 kilometres of boundary, notably in the problematic area near Preah Vihear Temple. The source said the trip was also related to preparations for the next JBC meeting, though the person did not explain why Prawit was doing a job that could be done by officials at the Thai Embassy in Phnom Penh.
Border demarcation became a key issue between the two countries in 2008, when conservative figures and the military opposed Phnom Penh’s move to list Preah Vihear as a World Heritage Site on grounds that the area adjacent to the sandstone ruins were still under dispute.
In 1962, the International Court of Justice ruled that the temple stood on territory that is under Cambodia’s sovereignty, though Bangkok argued that its vicinity belonged to Thailand.
Phnom Penh took the case to the ICJ, which confirmed in 2013 that Cambodia had sovereignty over the entire area of the Preah Vihear compound and urged the two nations to cooperate in good faith.
