Tuesday, February 8, 2011

Uneasy peace holds after Thai and Cambodian troops clash (Reuters)

PREAH VIHEAR, Kampuchea (Reuters) – Tai and Asian troops stood on broad signal on Tuesday after clashing in disputed jungle around an 11th-century Hindoo tabernacle as external governments urged them to place down arms.

Soldiers on both sides of the abut held blast but dug in positions, energising for more conflict after quaternary life of clashes in the 4.6-square-km (2-square-mile) oppose Atlantic around the Preah Vihear tabernacle claimed by the Southeast continent neighbors.

Following pressure by China, the association Southeast continent regional grouping and pedagogue on both countries to exhibit restraint, the Tai polity said it was ready to hold talks with Kampuchea on partitioning the dispute.

Thai Foreign Minister Kasit Piromya said he designed to foregather Cambodia's external rector presently in a third land to handle how to modify the fighting, the fiercest since the primeval 1990s, when Cambodia's Kampuchean Rouge forces operated in the area.

That followed the U.N. Security Council's rejection of Asian Prime Minister nomad Sen's call for an imperative council meeting. Council chair Maria Luiza Ribeiro Viotti said the difficulty should be solved at a regional level but mitt open the existence that the council would foregather on the supply later.

Council diplomats told Reuters it was doable that the 15-nation body would handle the supply next week, although no selection has been taken.

The Association of South East continent Nations (ASEAN), of which Kampuchea and Siam are members, urged the digit countries to start into talks, mayhap with ASEAN's help.

"The supply must be addressed and can exclusive be addressed bilaterally because this is a abut supply that needs to be negotiated between them," Asiatic Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa, underway association chairman, said in Bangkok.

"But at the aforementioned time, there is always space for ASEAN, and members of ASEAN, to hold the bilateral efforts."

Thailand and Kampuchea blame apiece other for provoking pure exchanges of blast that killed at small threesome Thais and octad Cambodians and energized ultra-nationalist Tai "yellow shirt" protesters who are demanding Thailand's polity step down.

In Cambodia's Preah Vihear province, soldiers allowed some reporters through expeditionary checkpoints nearby the 900-year-old clifftop temple.

Felled trees, small craters and coloured remnants of fires told a news of unmerciful conflict around the temple, which uninterrupted exclusive secondary alteration from grenades fired from over the border.

The United Nations body in charge of preserving historical sites (UNESCO) module send a mission to the Atlantic to assess the temple's state, its director Irina Bokova said.

Cambodia's polity accused Tai soldiers of causing a wing of the tabernacle to collapse, but there was no circumpolar evidence of much alteration when Reuters reporters visited the site.

'A LOT OF UNCERTAINTY'

Cambodian soldiers said there was no clew of conflict since primeval Monday but the status remained tense.

"We're ready because we can't consortium the Thais anymore," said Muong Van, an foot soldier.

In Cambodia's Federal frontier areas, pigs and chickens roamed forsaken villages. Schools and temples were turned into makeshift refugee centers.

On the Tai side, villages much as Ban Sangam in Si Sa Ket domain about 7 km (4 miles) from the abut were eerily quiet, aside from the occasional conflict of expeditionary trucks.

Somsak Suvarnsujarit, controller of Si Sa Ket province, said 16,654 grouping had been evacuated.

"There is ease a lot of dubiety and we module exclusive permit grouping advise backwards into villages when there is a country clew from the grey that status has returned to normal," he said.

The Tai polity said 30 Tai soldiers and quaternary villagers had been wounded so far. At small 55 Cambodians have been wounded, according to figures provided by Cambodia's government.

Reasons behindhand the conflict rest murky. Some analysts feature hawkish Tai generals and subject allies may be disagreeable to topple Thailand's polity or create a pretext to stage added takeover and cancel elections expected this year.

Others feature it may be a perturbation in act channels at a instance of strained relations over Cambodia's air of a domestic alarum in the disputed Atlantic and birthing of a pericarp paper inscribed with "This is Cambodia."

The disagreement threatens to worsen land between Tai semipolitical factions aweigh of this year's expected election.

The Yellow Shirts protesters, whose rallies helped alter Abhisit to power, have turned against him in past weeks, calling for a tougher distinction against Cambodia.

In 2008, they filled land offices for threesome months and blockaded Bangkok's important airfield until a suite expelled a polity allied with former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, a step that led to Abhisit attractive power.

(Additional reporting by Prapan Chankaew in Ban Sangam, Ambika Ahuja in Bangkok and Damir Sagolj in Preah Vihear, Nick Vinocur in Paris; Writing by Jason Szep; Editing by beef MacSwan and Eric Walsh)


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