Natural Resources and Environment Minister Kasem Sanidwong na Ayudhaya said he would handle the land controversy surrounding Prime Minister Surayud Chulanont's retreat in Nakhon Ratchasima in a straightforward manner.

Kasem said he would have the answer as to whether Surayud illegally acquired the 20 rai for the home after the new year.

He was speaking after ordering Fores-try Department director-general

Wichai Laemwilai to inspect the retreat in a national forest reserve in Nakhon Ratchasima.

He said people have been allowed to use the land on degraded forest since 1998.

Kasem said the Chuan cabinet issued a resolution on June 30, 1998 as a way to solve the land shortage. People are allowed to use the land but are not allowed to own it.

Kasem said he could not tell if Surayud's home was on reserved forest because now all areas covering Khao Yai Tiang Mountain were reserved forest.

A source said if Surayud's acquisition of land from local villagers, who acquired the land under the 1998 cabinet resolution, is interpreted as encroaching on reserved forest, then all people who acquired land under the resolution everywhere else in the country would also be in the wrong.

Surayud had earlier said his wife had paid the municipal tax correctly on the land at Khao Yai Tiang, where his retreat home is located, since 2002. But if there was anything illegal in the acquisition, he would step down as prime minister and relinquish the land.

Thai Rak Thai caretaker executive Vichit Plangsrikul said the party had found the land that Surayud occupied was reserve forest - and he could not occupy it. He said Surayud has an image of a person with high ethics and he would take responsibility for the matter. The party will not issue any demands, he added.

The Thai-language newspaper Khao Sod earlier this week published a picture of a building near Surayud's forest home and said it was a wooden structure. The paper had previously published another photo of the building and claimed it resembled a railway carriage.

details of Surayud's acquisition of the land were allegedly leaked to the press last weekend by an aide to former prime minister General Chavalit Yongchaiyudh, who appears to have a conflict with the coup leaders.