Thai PM to make official visit to Phnom Penh tomorrow

The Thai prime minister will visit Phnom Penh tomorrow, at the invitation of her Cambodian counterpart, Hun Manet.

During the two-day official visit, Paetongtarn Shinawatra will be granted an audience with Cambodia's King Norodom Sihamoni and will pay a courtesy call on Senate President Hun Sen.

The visit is part of celebrations marking the 75th anniversary of Thai-Cambodian diplomatic relations. A ceremony will also be held to unveil the official logo for the occasion.

Relations between Thailand and Cambodia have had their ups and downs over the years, notably marked by their border dispute over the Preah Vihear temple, which was brought before the International Court of Justice in 1962.

In 2011, Cambodia asked the ICJ for an interpretation of the 1962 ICJ ruling. Two years later, the Court ruled that Cambodia has sovereignty, not only over the temple but also the adjacent promontory, ordering Thailand to withdraw all military and police forces.

What is pending now is the Thailand-Cambodia overlapping maritime zone dispute, which involves 27,000km2 in the Gulf of Thailand.

Ties have, however, improved recently under Paetongtarn’s leadership, partly due to her father, former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra’s historically close relationship with Hun Sen.

When Thaksin fled Thailand, to avoid prison on corruption charges and lived in self-imposed exile, Hun Sen, then the Cambodian prime minister, appointed him as his personal economic adviser.