Marty Natalegawa (middle) flanked by Cambodian Foreign Minister Hor Namhong to the left and Thai Foreign Minister to the right in Jakarta during the Cambodian-Thai meeting on 22nd February, 2011.(philstar.com)
Updated April 11, 2011
BANGKOK (Xinhua) - Marty Natalegawa, Indonesian Foreign Minister and current ASEAN chairman, admitted on Monday that the recent conflict between Thailand and Cambodia could have a short-term, negative impact on creating ASEAN community.
However, in the longer term, if the problem would be addressed with the engagement of ASEAN, it would have positive impact on other cases when dispute between ASEAN members arise.
"I think, in the short term, my answer would be it is troubling, it is creating special challenges for ASEAN but, in the longer term, if we could get it right, it will have a huge positive impact," Marty said at Special Informal ASEAN Foreign Ministers' Meeting on East Asia Summit in Bangkok.
He said this is the first time that ASEAN country members tried to settle this kind of conflict directly.
"It shows ASEAN for the first time addressing an issue of this type directly and not simply producing documents," Marty said.
ASEAN, which comprises Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam, has traditionally followed a policy of non-intervention in its members' internal political problems.
As for the progress of Indonesian observers to be deployed along the two countries' border to ensure ceasefire, the Indonesian Foreign Minister said the countries have not yet agreed on the 'area of coverage'.
"We have one key remaining, pending issue, namely the so called 'area of coverage' where the observer team, member team would be assigned," said Marty.
Besides, he also addressed that the observer team will be unarmed unit and not wearing military uniform, and therefore, the team should be 'assigned' not 'deployed'.
He unveiled that Thai government had recently come up with a new proposal on where the observers would be assigned. He pointed out also that although the Indonesian observer team had not yet been assigned, the situation between Thailand and Cambodia had grown more stable.
"The border situation today is far more stable than it was last February. It would be with more ideal if we have the observer team on the ground. I would say that we are up to making a good progress on the issue," said the chairman.
In the informal ASEAN foreign ministers' meeting in Jakarta on Feb. 22, at the invitations of Thailand and Cambodia, Indonesia agreed to send its 30 observers to the disputed border areas near the 11th century Preah Vihear temple soon in order to monitor the ceasefire between the two nations.
Thai-Cambodian relations have been volatile since July 2008, when UNESCO's World Heritage Committee added Preah Vihear temple to its list of world heritage sites, despite Thai objections.
The sand stone Hindu temple, perched on a cliff in the Dangrek mountain range between the two countries, has frequent been a subject of contention for the past five decades.
In 1962 the International Court of Justice decided the temple belonged to Cambodia, but failed to rule on a 4.6-square-kilometre (1.8 sq miles) plot of surrounding land that both countries claim.
The most recent border conflict, which occurred on February 4-7, claimed at least eight lives of both civilians and soldiers on both sides and caused massive evacuation of the people living along the border area during the fighting.
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