'No right to claim temple'

Phnom Penh will push ahead with its unilateral application to list the Hindu temple as a World Heritage site. Thailand relinquished its sovereignty over the temple and its surrounding area to Cambodia since 1962 when the Cabinet at the time agreed to follow the International Court of Justice's verdict to hand the temple to Cambodia.

A note from then foreign minister Thanat Khoman to the United Nations in 1962 expressed Thailand's disagreement and reserved the right, if any, in the future to resume its sovereignty over the temple. However, the map annexed with Thanat's note to then UN secretary-general U Thant indicated that Thailand had "relinquished" part of the territory handed together with the temple to Cambodia, said Krit Kraichitti, the Foreign Ministry's director of Treaties and Legal Affairs Department.

The ICJ statutes allow conflicting parties to seek a review of the court's decision within 10 years of the ruling, he said.

"The right is over and no one shall fan misunderstanding over the right to reclaim the temple from Cambodia," Krit said.

"[Preah Vihear] is our temple and we want it to receive World Heritage listing," Cambodia's Council of Ministers spokesman Phay Siphan was quoted as saying by the Phnom Penh Post on Monday.