Parliament gives nod to Thai-Cambodia border talk

By The Nation
http://www.nationmultimedia.com

Wed, September 2, 2009

The Parliament also approves other joint frameworks with Asean countries as required by the charter

The Parliament approved on Wednesday reports of Thailand-Cambodia joint boundary commission which give a go-ahead to the boundary demarcation at the disputed area near the Preah Vihear temple.

The joint session between the lower and upper house in their closed-door meeting voted in favor of the reports 306 against 6.

The Cabinet submitted for the parliament approval the three agreed-minutes of Thai-Cambodian Joint Commission on Demarcation for Land Boundary (JBC) as required by the article 190 of the constitution.

The JBC met in November last year, February and April this year to set frameworks for boundary demarcation and provisional arrangement at the disputed area near Preah Vihear temple.

The ministry needed to report to the parliament before further discussion with Cambodia.

Thailand and Cambodia are in loggerhead over the disputed area adjacent to the temple since last year. The JBC was activated to clear the boundary line and set provisional arrangement to jointly run the disputed area as long as the demarcation has not finished yet.

Meanwhile the Parliament also voted in favour of the frameworks of negotiation for Thailand-Laos Joint Boundary Commission and Thailand-Burma Regional Border Committee.

The framework of border negotiation between Thailand and Malaysia as well as the framework of relation of high level commission between Thailand and Indonesia were also got approval from the parliament.

However the government withdrew the draft of World Bank's Public Sector Reform Development Policy Loan (PSRDPL) from the parliament consideration and will re-submit again later since the draft has a lot of detail and the members need times to consider.