By Thai Newsroom Reporters
DEPUTY PRIME MINISTER-cum-Defence Minister Phumtham Wechayachai today (Nov. 11) downplayed criticism that de facto Pheu Thai boss Thaksin Shinawatra and former Cambodian prime minister Hun Sen had mutually made a secret deal over a contentious, profit-sharing undersea resources development scheme in an upper part of the Gulf of Thailand.
Phumtham, largely known as a right-hand man for the Thai billionaire power player and de facto boss of the largest ruling party, told reporters at Government House there was no such thing as a secret deal between the former Thai and Cambodian prime ministers as alleged on social media in regard to the debatable Thai-Cambodian joint project to explore and produce oil, natural gas and other undersea resources around Koh Kood island off Trat.
Nevertheless, Thaksin’s right-hand man sidestepped the reporters’ questions pertaining to a remarkable event in which the de facto Pheu Thai boss had hosted a private visit of Hun Sen as the first guest to his Chan Song Lah residence a few days after he had been released on parole from Police Hospital earlier this year.
Tete-a-tete talks about the joint undersea resources development scheme were allegedly discussed among other matters between the two former prime ministers, however.
Phumtham confirmed that a Thai technical committee will certainly be set up to hold detailed negotiations with the Cambodian side on profit-sharing, undersea natural resources development plans.
Accompanied by admirals, the deputy prime minister-cum-defence minister has visited Koh Kood island off the eastern seaboard province over the weekend whilst Deputy Prime Minister-cum-Interior Minister Anutin Charnvirakul was scheduled to follow suit today in a concerted effort to restore the confidence of local villagers and tourists to the island around which the undersea natural resources remain untapped.
Thaksin’s critics have invariably called on the Pheu Thai-led government headed by his daughter-turned-Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra, to unilaterally, completely rescind a 2001 MoU signed between Thailand and Cambodia in the time of his previous premiership pertaining to the profit-sharing undersea resources development plan, which they contended, would probably render undue disadvantage on the Thai side because the Cambodian side could possibly practically declare territorial integrity, albeit in illegitimate fashion, over half the 26,000-sq.km. maritime area of which overlapping claims had been earlier made by both countries.
A possible takeover by Cambodia of the overlapping maritime area around the Thai island would ultimately violate the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea of 1982 which Phnom Penh has not yet ratified, according to Thai Pakdee chair Warong Dechgitvigrom.
The former Democrat MP said nobody in his right mind would seriously doubt Thailand’s territorial integrity over Koh Kood where some high-level government officials had unnecessarily assured to the public but, he said, an unresolved bone of contention practically rests with whether the 370-km.radius of Thailand’s maritime territorial integrity around the island could possibly be up for grabs between the two neighbouring countries in the future in accordance with the terms and conditions of the questionable MoU.
Warong is currently seeking public support for a fresh petition in pursuit of an unilateral termination by the Pheu Thai-led government of the bilateral agreement on the Thai-Cambodian joint undersea resources development scheme by soliciting a targeted 100,000 people, especially among an estimated 227,000 villagers of Trat, some 2,700 of whom being Koh Kood islanders, to undersign it.
CAPTIONS:
Deputy Prime Minister/Defence Minister Phumtham Wechayachai arriving at Koh Kood over the weekend. Top photo: TV Channel 7, Front Page photo: Thai Rath
Insert: Former prime minister and de facto Pheu Thai boss Thaksin Shinawatra, left, is welcomed by former Cambodian prime minister Hun Sen upon arrival at Peace Palace in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, on Sep.17, 2011. File photo: VOA
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