Thai fugitive ex-premier Thaksin on third visit to Cambodia - Update

21 Jan, 2010
DPA

Phnom Penh - Thailand's fugitive former premier Thaksin Shinawatra was scheduled to leave Phnom Penh for Dubai Thursday after a 24-hour visit, Cambodian government spokesman Prak Sokhon said. The visit was Thaksin's third to the Cambodian capital since being named an economic adviser in October, a move that put further strains on the already tense relationship between Thailand and Cambodia.

Prak Sokhon said he did not know whether Thaksin would meet with members of Puea Thai, the opposition political party in Thailand with which he is linked. On his previous visits, Thaksin met with his political supporters from Thailand, who have vowed to escalate anti-government protests there.

"He is free to come and go [from Cambodia]," Prak Sokhon said when asked about the purpose of Thaksin's visit. "He doesn't need to have a motive to come here.

"Earlier, Khieu Kanharith, the minister of information, said Thaksin arrived in Cambodia Wednesday on a visit to impart economic advice to the administration, adding that Thaksin had dined with Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen late Wednesday.

Khieu Kanharith said Thaksin would not hold a press briefing on this visit. On Thaksin's first visit late last year, he addressed an economic conference of government officials, to which the press had limited access.

The visit was unlikely to improve ties between Thailand and Cambodia, which remain at their lowest level in years.

Cambodia appointed Thaksin, who has a two-year jail sentence still to serve in Thailand for abuse of power, as an adviser to the government and to Hun Sen.

Those appointments and Phnom Penh's refusal to extradite Thaksin outraged Bangkok and saw both countries withdraw their ambassadors and senior embassy staff. The ambassadors have yet to return.

This month, the Cambodian government rejected a demand by Thai Foreign Minister Kasit Piromya that Phnom Penh dismiss Thaksin as an adviser before relations between the two countries could improve.

Bangkok considers the appointment of Thaksin, the de facto opposition leader, as interference in its internal politics. Thaksin was prime minister of Thailand from 2001 to 2006 before being toppled in a bloodless coup. He fled the country and has lived in self-imposed exile, mostly in Dubai, since August 2008.

The relationship between the two neighbours has been tense for more than a year with a number of clashes reported between troops from both countries over a disputed piece of land near the 11th-century Preah Vihear border temple in northern Cambodia.