Cambodia, Thailand to strengthen cooperation despite border row

PHNOM PENH (Xinhua) – Cambodian and Thai information officials met here on Monday to strengthen and expand cooperation on information and broadcasting between the two neighboring countries despite ongoing bitter border row.

Ladavan Bua-aim, deputy director general of the public relations department at the National Broadcasting Services of Thailand, said that despite the border dispute, Cambodia and Thailand still have enjoyed close cooperation at all levels in terms of economic and social development.

"As ASEAN members, I am confident that our two countries are working together to realize an ASEAN community by 2015, and we will move even closer together," he said in the fourth meeting of Cambodian and Thai information officials.

Cambodia and Thailand signed the Memorandum of Understanding ( MoU) on the cooperation in the field of information and broadcasting in February 2006.

"Although the MoU has not produced a very high result, but it helps foster better understanding and relations between the peoples of the two countries," said Thach Phan, a secretary of state for Cambodian ministry of information.

Cambodia and Thailand have border conflict just a week after Cambodia's Preah Vihear temple was enlisted as a World Heritage Site on July 7, 2008.

Since then, both sides have built up military forces along the border and periodic clashes have happened, resulted in the deaths of troops and civilians on both sides.