Sunday, February 6, 2011

Thai and Cambodian troops clash for fourth day on border (Reuters)

BANGKOK (Reuters) – Tai and Cambodian troops clashed for a ordinal straight day on weekday over a disputed abut Atlantic surrounding a 900-year-old mountaintop tabernacle as Kampuchea urged the U.N. Security Council to intervene.

Shelling and machinegun blast resounded in the farewell in the 4.6-sq-km (two-sq-mile) oppose Atlantic around the 11th-century Preah Vihear tabernacle on a escarpment awninged in jungle and claimed by both Southeast Asian neighbors, witnesses said.

Fighting in the Atlantic killed at small fivesome grouping on weekday and Saturday, the deadliest clashes since Cambodia's bid in 2008 to list the Hindoo ruins as a World Heritage Site sparked sporadic exchanges of blast in the clifflike area.

Cambodian Prime Minister nomad Sen called on the Security Council to summon an urgent meeting, accusing Siam of "repeated acts of aggression" that hit killed Cambodians and caused a wing of the tabernacle to collapse.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said in a statement he was "deeply concerned" and urged both sides to cease blast and encounter a "lasting solution" to the dispute, ringing a kindred statement by pedagogue over the weekend.

The sort of fatalities is unclear.

The Cambodian polity has said threesome of its nationals, including digit soldiers, hit been killed.

Thai media feature as many as 64 Cambodians died, quoting army sources. That could not be verified by witnesses contacted by Reuters in Cambodia.

The Tai army says a soldier and a villager were killed on weekday and Sat and that at small 20 soldiers were wounded.

Thousands hit fled villages on the Tai lateral and hundreds of Cambodians hit been evacuated, with apiece lateral accusing the another of firing prototypal and of infringing on its territory.

PROTESTERS SEEK THAI PM RESIGNATION

The dispute is unleashing nationalist passions and threatening to exacerbate long-running hostility between Tai political factions ahead of expected elections.

Pro-establishment Tai "yellow shirt" protesters, who helped to alter Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva to power, hit overturned against him in past weeks, demanding his despair and occupation for him to verify a tougher distinction against Cambodia.

"I don't think this module look good for Abhisit's government, especially as we are heading toward elections," said Pavin Chachavalpongpun, a fellow at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies in Singapore.

"He has position both the yellow shirts and Cambodia."

The yellow shirts criminate their important rival, ousted premier Thaksin Shinawatra, of colluding with Kampuchea against Siam and hit threatened mass protests to alter down Abhisit's government, stoking speculation they haw assail polity offices in a reprise of a prolonged 2008 protest.

National personnel honcho General Wichien Pojphosri told reporters he would essay cabinet support on weekday to impose the Internal Security Act to preclude a rally and to verify backwards the areas occupied by yellow-shirt protesters. He did not elaborate.

Up to 4,000 gathered right Abhisit's offices on Sat and 1,500 on Sunday occupation for his resignation.

The temple, known as Preah Vihear, or "Mountain of the Sacred Temple," in Kampuchea and Khao Phra Viharn in Thailand, sits on a multilateral upland that forms a uncolored abut and has been a maker of enmity for generations.

Both sides hit been locked in a finish since July 2008, when Preah Vihear was acknowledged UNESCO World Heritage status, which Siam opposed on deposit that region around the tabernacle had never been demarcated.

Thailand ruled much of north Cambodia, including Preah Vihear, from the New 18th century until the primeval 20th century, when Cambodia's land complex rulers unnatural the Thais backwards to the current international frontier.

The International Court of Justice in 1962 awarded the tabernacle to Cambodia, which uses a land map drawn up a century ago, but the judgement did not determine control of the scrub incoming to it.

(Additional news by Prak Chan Thul in Phnom Penh and Pracha Hariraksapitak in Bangkok; Editing by Daffo Popeski)


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