Albright urges Thailand to finish banking reform

Albright urges Thailand to finish banking reform

BANGKOK (Agencies): U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright pressed Thailand on Thursday to complete reforms of its banking system and held out the lure of selling the Thais used U.S. F-16 jet fighters.

"My goal in coming here is to reaffirm America's deep friendship for a strong ally ... and our strong support" for Thailand's effort to reform its economy, she said at a news conference after meeting with royal and government leaders here.

Visiting the heart of the Asian financial crisis, Albright said Thailand's adoption of 11 pending banking and financial reform measures demanded by the International Monetary Fund is crucial.

Thai Foreign Minister Surin Pitsuwan, appearing at the news conference with Albright, promised an intense effort to win passage of the reforms but noted wide opposition to them in Thailand's Parliament.

"It needs time and it needs a lot of players," Surin told reporters. "She understands that."

Albright also announced that the United States was considering selling used F-16 jet fighters to the Thais as replacements for the eight F-18 jets that Thailand ordered but had to cancel because of its economic woes.

The Clinton administration agreed to let Thailand renege on the $392 million contract and the U.S. Marine Corps took the planes instead.

Albright met with Surin following a meeting with Prime Minister Chuan Leekpai and after paying a call on King Bhumibol Adulyadej, the 71-year-old head of state and a revered figure.

After holding a working lunch with Thai leaders she departed for Jakarta, Indonesia.

Touching on Cambodia, Albright said on Thursday that Washington wanted Khmer Rouge leaders put before an international tribunal and rejected Cambodian government suggestions this might be destabilizing.

State Department spokesman James Rubin said the United States supported the setting up of a tribunal via the United Nations Security Council and added that Washington did not automatically assume China would veto the idea, as some diplomats have suggested.

"We want the top leaders brought to justice and we do support an international tribunal on this," Albright told a news conference wrapping up a visit to Thailand.

She said the United States disagreed with comments by Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen, who has said that such a trial might be destabilizing. "On the contrary, we think that is the way to reconciliation," she said.

Some 1.7 million Cambodians died from torture, overwork, starvation, execution or disease during the Khmer Rouge's "killing fields" reign of terror in the late 1970s.

Experts hired by the United Nations have recommended setting up an ad hoc international tribunal in Asia, but not in Cambodia, to put perhaps 20-30 leaders of the group on trial.

But Hun Sen said efforts to bring Khmer Rouge leaders to trial could create panic among members of the group who have already surrendered, and shatter recently found peace.

He said in a letter to UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan Cambodia was considering setting up a South Africa-style "truth commission" to investigate almost 30 years of conflict.

Albright said a truth commission would not be a substitute for an international tribunal.

Cambodia's Foreign Minister Hor Namhong said the government was trying to find a middle path between preserving just-found peace and finding justice for Khmer Rouge victims.

"We have to take into account two elements. First is peace, security and national reconciliation and to carry out economic development," Hor Namhong told Reuters in Phnom Penh. "We can never afford to have war again."