Thais defy warning

BANGKOK - THAI soldiers will not leave a disputed stretch of the border with Cambodia despite an ultimatum from Phnom Penh for them to withdraw by midday on Tuesday, Foreign Minister Sompong Amornvivat said.

'We are in our homeland. How can they expect us to leave our home?' he said in reply to a question from a reporter.

Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen said on Monday the Thai troops should leave within 24 hours or his forces would turn the area into a 'death zone'.

Mr Hun Sen's comments came on Monday after he met Thailand's foreign minister in the latest effort to ease tensions over a territorial dispute that earlier this month sparked a brief exchange of gunfire at the border.

'We told them that if they do not stop (trespassing), armed clashes will break out,' Mr Hun Sen told reporters.

Thai Foreign Minister Sompong Amornwiwat did not immediately comment after the meeting.

Last week, two Thai soldiers were injured by land mines along the border. Thailand says the soldiers were on the Thai side of the border, but Cambodia has accused them of overstepping the boundary at a point several kilometres west of the ancient Preah Vihear temple.

The area - known as Eagle Field - could become 'a life-and-death battleground', Mr Hun Sen said, adding that Thai soldiers are now camped there about 33 metres from Cambodian troops.

Three days before that incident, at a point a few hundred yards (meters) away, a gunfight broke out between soldiers from the two sides. One Cambodian and two Thai soldiers were wounded.

Both sides claimed the other fired first and blamed each other for being on the wrong side of the border.

In a statement issued after Monday's meeting, Cambodia's Foreign Ministry called for more talks to 'avoid further unwarranted hostilities.'

Both countries have long claimed Preah Vihear, but the World Court awarded it to Cambodia in 1962. Sovereignty over some of the land around the temple, however, has not been clearly resolved.

Tensions flared July 15 after Unesco, the UN agency, approved Cambodia's bid to have the Preah Vihear temple named a World Heritage Site.

Both sides deployed troops to the border.

There has been a limited troop withdrawal from the area since, and talks have been held several times to resolve the conflicting claims, but without much progress. -- REUTERS, AP