Cambodia Ready to Talk on Border Row: PM

Cambodia has received mixed information from Thailand about its participation in next week's meetings in Indonesia on border conflict between the two countries, said Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen on Friday afternoon.

"Now we have received mixed information from Bangkok on the meetings," he said in a press briefing, referring to the meetings of Cambodia-Thai General Border Committee (GBC) and Joint Border Committee on Demarcation for Land Boundary (JBC) on April 7-8 that are to be held in Bogor, Indonesia.

He said that Cambodia has already prepared itself for the meetings. Cambodia's GBC will be led by Defense Minister Tea Banh and JBC by its president Var Kimhong.

The premier made the remarks after Thai Foreign Minister Kasit Piromya on Thursday said that there is a possibility that only the Thai-Cambodian Joint Boundary Committee (JBC) meeting will be held in Indonesia, without convening a General Border Committee (GBC) meeting.

"Until now the Thai Defense Ministry still hopes that Cambodia will host the 7th GBC meeting so that the JBC meeting would be the only meeting to be convened in Indonesia on April 7-8," the Thai state media MCOT online quoted Kasit as saying.

Cambodia and Thailand's troops exchanged fire just a week after the disputed 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 happened, resulting in the deaths of troops on both sides.

The latest clashes took place on Feb. 4-7, killing and wounding many soldiers and citizens of both sides.