No thoughts of replacing PM: Sonthi
The junta leader insisted yesterday that he never had the idea of removing Prime Minister Surayud Chulanont from office, as suggested by a group of activists recently.
General Sonthi Boonyaratglin, chairman of the Council for National Security (CNS), reiterated that he had never thought of replacing the premier.The CNS chief is empowered by the interim constitution to sack the prime minister. Sonthi said yesterday he had yet to make up his mind whether to enter the political arena after retiring from the Army. He is scheduled for mandatory retirement at the end of September. The general early this week met political activists from the Northeast at his office at the Army's headquarters, when the group petitioned him to remove the prime minister. But Sonthi said later that he had no knowledge about the group's intention and suggested that he was "tricked" into meeting them. Leaders of the activists yesterday disputed Sonthi's claim, saying they did not think the general was so naive to be tricked that way. "Nobody is convinced we set him up. We announced almost a week in advance about what we intended to do when meeting him," said Noppason Settharangsi, of a northeastern activist group.
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