Thai - Cambodian Relations; Kriangsak's "Mild Approach" to Cambodian Incursion

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428 of 1893 DOCUMENTS

BBC Summary of World Broadcasts

March 7, 1979, Wednesday

Thai - Cambodian Relations; Kriangsak's "mild approach" to Cambodian incursion

SOURCE: Bangkok home service 0530 gmt 5 Mar 79

SECTION: PART 3 THE FAR EAST; A. INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS; 3. FAR EASTERN RELATIONS; FE/6060/A3/19;

LENGTH: 308 words

On the morning of 5th March, the Thai Premier, Gen Kriangsak Chamanan, told reporters that he did not consider the Cambodian intrusion an attack on Thai forces. He also disclosed that the Cambodians had taken weapons from the dead and wounded Thai soldiers. Asked what measures would be taken to prevent the fighting from spilling into Thailand, Kriangsak replied: "We will start with a mild approach before taking a strong one. I mean, if they happened to enter our country, they would be told to leave. But if they insisted on intruding deeper, we would take stronger action. Anyway, our troops have sealed off the border. We will try not to take a serious step right away, but will try to deal with it as mildly as possible in the beginning because we do not want to become involved in their fighting. We are not sending our planes to bomb them just because they have penetrated about 100 or 200 meters inside our country . . . In fact, there is no exact demarcation sign for determining for certain whether they penetrated 100 or 200 meters deep inside our territory. We know it was about 200 meters because our men were in the area. I have told our authorities that we do not want to get involved in the fighting in Cambodia. We will take a mild action first. We will warn them first. However, we have taken a precautionary measure to prevent them from penetrating deeper. If they do not listen to our warning, we will take a stronger measure to cope with each incident. Our aircraft are carrying out reconnaissance all the time."

Asked about a report that the intruding troops had included Vietnamese in "hot pursuit" of Khmer Rouge, Kriangsak said: "This report has not been confirmed yet. We must investigate it first. We cannot make any comment now without proof because that would put us at a disadvantage."

LANGUAGE: ENGLISH