14/01/2010
Asia-Pacific News
Phnom Penh - Thailand's fugitive former premier Thaksin Shinawatra this month is to make his third visit to Cambodia since being named a government adviser as ties between the two nations worsen, local media reported Thursday.
Cambodian Foreign Minister Hor Namhong said Thaksin's visit, which comes at a time when Thaksin's supporters in Thailand have vowed to escalate anti-government protests there, was 'not strange.'
'Thaksin coming or going out of Cambodia is a normal thing,' Hor Namhong said, according to the Phnom Penh Post newspaper.
Thailand's Supreme Court is to decide February 26 whether the state would seize 2 billion dollars in frozen bank accounts in Thaksin's and his family's names, a pending decision that has heightened political tensions as Thaksin's supporters were expected to escalate their efforts to topple the Thai government before their leader risks losing his fortune.
Cambodian foreign affairs spokesman Koy Kuong said Thaksin's arrival date and the duration of his stay remained unclear, adding that the former premier would visit in his role as economic adviser.
'We don't know the clear programme exactly, but normally, as an economic adviser, he would [work on tasks] relevant to economic affairs,' Koy Kuong told the German Press Agency dpa Thursday.
He added that he could not predict whether Thaksin would meet with his supporters from Thailand while in Cambodia as he has done on his previous visits but agreed such a meeting would be no surprise.
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 Prime Minister Hun Sen in October.
Those appointments and Phnom Penh's refusal to extradite Thaksin outraged Bangkok and saw the two neighbours withdraw their ambassadors and senior embassy staff. Neither ambassador has returned, and relations remain tense.
This week, 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.
Hun Sen, who Thursday was celebrating 25 years as Cambodia's prime minister, subsequently predicted the demise of the current administration in Bangkok.
Bangkok considers the appointment of Thaksin, the de-facto opposition leader, as interference in its internal politics, a charge Phnom Penh rejects.
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 members of the Association of South-East Asian Nations 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 Preah Vihear temple on the border in northern Cambodia.
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