Thailand’s embattled Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra arrived in Phnom Penh for a two-day visit Monday afternoon, just hours after he appealed personally to his country’s Constitutional Council not to oust him over corruption allegations.
Thaksin was greeted by Prime Minister Hun Sen at Pochentong Airport at just after 4 pm. They met later at the Council of Ministers, where the leaders signed an agreement on potential oil exploration in a 27,000 square-km area in the Gulf of Siam that Cambodia and Thailand have been disputing for 30 years.
The memorandum of understanding on the “Overlapping Maritime Claims” states neither country can allow oil drilling in the waters until each agrees on a resolution to the dispute.
It also included an agreement to split revenue between the two countries 50-50 if they decide to allow drilling before the dispute is fully resolved. The agreement sets up a joint committee to continue working toward a solution for the next six months.
“There has been much progress,” said Te Duong Dara, director-general for the Cambodian National Petroleum Authority. “We can break the deadlock over the overlapping claim.”
Te Duong Dara gave some the credit on the step forward to the new Thai government, elected six months ago. He said Cambodia has worked with eight Thai leaders to try to resolve the dispute.
“This is very important for Cambodia, because our economy depends on foreign aid,” he said. “We could have cheaper gas and electricity, and gas is a key to development.”
The two governments signed a similar agreement earlier this month, when Thai foreign Minister Surakiart Sathirathai visited Phnom Penh.
Thaksin and Hun Sen also signed a broad joint agreement on economics and trade. The 14-point statement included an agreement to control illegal logging along the border, to work to demine the border area and to fight human and drug trafficking.
Another agreement stated that the two prime ministers would agree on the location of border posts in the next few years.
Earlier in the day, about 50 members of the Democratic Front of Khmer Students and Intellectuals held a morning rally in front of the National Assembly and asked King Norodom Sihanouk to negotiate Thai border problems under the guidelines signed by 19 countries in the 1991 Paris Peace Agreements.
“We march today because the Thai prime minister visits Cambodia, and we send a message to him about Thais who keep invading Cambodian territory,” said group leader Sun Sokunmealea.
Demonstrators passed out leaflets to passersby, then marched down Norodom Boulevard to the Thai embassy, where their petition was accepted by a Thai Embassy official. The students then marched to the Vietnamese Embassy and delivered a similar petition.
Vietnamese officials said the embassy was closed Monday for the Queen Norodom Monineath holiday, but an embassy guard did take the petition.
In the afternoon, dozens of police, positioned a few hundred meters apart, lined Russian Boulevard from the airport.
Instead of being greeted by demonstrators as his motorcade made its way into the capital, Thaksin was welcomed by students in school uniforms waving Thai and Cambodian flags and holding paper flowers.
More than 20 Bangkok-based reporters trailed Thaksin. Neither he nor Hun Sen took questions.
Hun Sen was the first national leader to invite Thaksin for a state visit last January. The two were scheduled to have dinner at the Hotel Inter-Continental Monday
Today, Thaksin will call on Senate President Chea Sim, National Assembly President Prince Norodom Ranariddh and King Norodom Sihanouk. He is also scheduled to lay a wreath at Independence Monument with co-Ministers of Defense Tea Banh and Prince Sisowath Sirirath.
At 3 pm, he will depart Pochentong for a state visit to Burma.
(Additional reporting by Saing Soenthrith)
