Cambodia takes Asean offer to help end row with Thailand

Cambodia's Foreign Minister Hor Namhong, who was not present in the Asean meeting, asked for help in a letter to Singapore Foreign Minister George Yeo, current chairman of Asean after the Thai-Cambodia special border meeting failed to end the military stand off.

He suggested Singapore, Indonesia, Vietnam and Laos to sit in the inter-ministerial group to facilitate the talk.

The inter-ministerial group would call an urgent meeting by noon Tuesday on the sideline of Asean Post Ministerial meeting here.

Thai delegation at the Asean meeting has not yet made a clear decision on how to respond to Cambodia move.

Foreign Ministry's deputy spokesman Thani Thongpakdi said the two countries should maintain the issue only in bilateral level.

The Asean chairman statement made pretty clear that both sides should use bilateral mechanism to solve the problem, he said.

Thailand and Cambodia Monday failed to resolve a military stand-off at their border, due to legal constraints, the heads of the two countries' delegations said following a lengthy meeting in Thailand's Sa Kaew province.

Cambodian Deputy Premier and Defence Minister General Tea Banh, who led the Cambodian delegation, said both sides had agreed to ease tensions and avoid violence.

Delegates Monday spent nearly eight hours in closed-door meetings in Aranyaprathet to try to resolve the military stand-off, which started several days ago as a result of a border dispute near the 11th-century Preah Vihear Temple.

Thousands of Thai and Cambodian troops are now stationed around a small Buddhist pagoda on the disputed land on a mountain slope leading to Preah Vihear.

Cambodia recently got approval from Unesco's World Heritage Committee to list Preah Vihear as a World Heritage site, causing anger among nationalist Thais.