Thai, Cambodian PMs to confer on border tensions during ASEAN summit

BANGKOK, Thailand's Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva said on Monday he would discuss with his Cambodian counterpart Hun Sen about defusing tensions along the two countries' border on the sidelines of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) plus 3 summit, Thai News Agency reported.

The issue won't be raised at the three-day summit, which will start on Friday in Pattaya; instead the two countries will have a negotiation between themselves, Abhisit said.

The situation at the border has steadily improved and normalcy should be soon restored as concerned officials of both countries have met and discussed ways to cool down the situation, he said.

The latest border clashes between Thailand and Cambodia broke out last Friday when soldiers of the two countries clashed twice near the ancient Preah Vihear temple, leaving casualties on both sides.

Thailand and Cambodia have earlier conducted a few round of negotiations which involved the militaries and foreign ministries from the two sides to solve the border dispute regarding areas around the temple, a UNESCO world heritage site.

The International Court of Justice ruled the temple belonged to Cambodia more than 40 years ago. But border dispute over areas around the temple has remained a fuse in the two countries' relationship.

The Thai-Cambodian border has never been fully demarcated, in part because the border is littered with landmines left during the Indochina war between 1960s and 1970s.