Cambodia denies Thaksin link in Thai temple spat

By Ek Madra

PHNOM PENH (Reuters) - Cambodia denied on Friday claims by a group trying to oust the Thai government that Bangkok had covertly ceded land near the disputed 900-year-old Preah Vihear temple on their joint border.

Foreign Minister Hor Namhong said there was also no truth in the People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD) assertion that Thailand had backed Cambodia's bid to list the temple as a U.N. World Heritage Site in return for business concessions for ousted Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra.

"This has nothing to do with that. But these people used it as pretext for their own political exploitation," he told a news conference.

"Thailand did not lose any land -- not even a square centimeter or handprint," he said.

"They took up this issue for political purposes in their aims to topple the Thai government, which would hurt the cooperation and friendship with Cambodia."

Preah Vihear, built by Khmer kings in the 11th century at the start of the Angkorian period, sits on top of a jungle-clad escarpment that forms a natural boundary between Cambodia and Thailand and has been a source of tension for decades.

The site was awarded to Cambodia by the International Court of Justice in 1962 in a decision that rankles with most Thais.

The ruins were off-limits for much of the 1970s to the 1990s, while the temple and surrounding forest were occupied by Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge.

Cambodia closed the temple again this week for fears a nationalist frenzy whipped up by the anti-Thaksin PAD and the opposition Democrat party during a no-confidence debate in parliament could turn into a major ruction.

Several dozen Thai activists with 40,000 signatures went to

U.N. cultural agency offices and the Cambodian embassy in Bangkok calling for a delay in the listing until both countries had settled the dispute.

"We want to tell them that the people of Thailand disagree with what our stubborn government is doing," campaign leader Walwipha Charoonroj, who said she had received help from the PAD, told Reuters.

Fears of a major fallout over Preah Vihear are not fanciful, given that a nationalist mob torched the Thai embassy in Phnom Penh in 2003 over purported comments from a Thai soap star that Cambodia's Angkor Wat temples actually belonged to Thailand.

After the closure, Defence Minister Tea Banh denied a Thai newspaper report he was sending extra soldiers to the border, but said he was "watching the situation closely".

Tea Banh was quoted last month in Thai newspapers as saying Thaksin, ousted in a 2006 coup, was looking to invest in a resort-style entertainment complex on the Cambodian island of Koh Kong.