By Thai Newsroom Reporters
THE PHEU THAI-LED GOVERNMENT was today (Nov. 8) encouraged to entirely rescind the 2001 Memorandum of Understanding between Thailand and Cambodia in regard to a joint undersea resources development scheme which allegedly keeps the Thai side in undue disadvantage.
The Palang Pracharath today gave a press conference to insist that the current coalition government unilaterally, completely scrap the questionable MoU made in the time of former Thai prime minister/now de facto Pheu Thai boss Thaksin Shinawatra and his former Cambodian counterpart Hun Sen in 2001 pertaining to the profit-sharing, undersea natural resources project because, according to the opposition party, Thailand would practically otherwise lose immense interest from the joint development scheme.
Former energy minister/now deputy Palang Pracharath leader Sonthirat Sonthijirawat said the 2001 MoU which contentiously provides a 26,000-sq.-km. maritime radius of overlapping claims in territorial waters between the two neighbouring countries was not made in accordance with the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea of 1982 or a Thai royal decree issued in line with the Geneva Convention of 1958 pertaining to territorial continental shelves in the Gulf of Thailand.
The MoU which calls for joint exploration and production of undersea oil, natural gas and other natural resources around Koh Kood island off Trat could probably render undue advantage to the Cambodian side to the extent that half the territorial waters under overlapping claims between the two neighbouring countries be practically occupied and exploited by Cambodia, the former energy minister said.
Palang Pracharath executive member Kornkasivat Kasemsri said Thailand would probably lose no more than half the 7,000-sq.-km. radius of territorial waters under overlapping claims to Cambodia if the MoU had been made in accordance with the internationally-recognized UNCLOS covenant.
Palang Pracharath Secretary-General Paiboon Nititawan has earlier said the debatable MoU may be finally deemed “unconstitutional” and declared by the Thai side as null and void because, he said, it had been pushed by the previous Thaksin government without formal approval from the Thai legislative branch.
Nevertheless, Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra, daughter of the de facto Pheu Thai boss, has earlier confirmed that a joint technical committee will be set up on the Thai side shortly and that negotiations between Bangkok and Phnom Penh will be resumed with intent to implement the joint undersea resources development scheme as planned.
CAPTION:
Top and Front Page: Deputy Palang Pracharath leader Sonthirat Sonthijirawat, centre, flanked with two other party members talking to the press about the Thai-Cambodian MoU on undersea resources development. Photos: Naewna
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