Bangkok OKs Myanmar peace offer

Bangkok OKs Myanmar peace offer

BANGKOK (Agencies): Thailand said on Thursday it welcomed an olive branch from Myanmar's military government, which said this week it hoped a recent dispute over bloody border clashes could be solved peacefully.

New Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra said tensions at the border should subside soon.

"Everything will be settled soon because Myanmar has recently shown friendly gestures," he told reporters.

Thaksin's remarks came after Myanmar military intelligence chief Lt. Gen. Khin Nyunt was quoted by government newspapers on Tuesday as saying Yangon wanted to resolve its border dispute with Thailand peacefully.

Khin Nyunt was quoted as saying the border problem should be solved with an optimistic approach based on "mutual understanding, respect and magnanimity as true good neighbors".

But Thai Foreign Ministry spokesman Pradap Pibulsonggram said on Wednesday if Yangon was serious to restore peace, its leadership should inform Bangkok formally that it would restart bilateral border committee meetings, which it suspended two years ago.

Tensions flared between the two countries earlier this month, with dozens reported killed in clashes between soldiers.

Thailand said Myanmar soldiers seized one of its border outposts and then hit the Thai frontier town of Mae Sai with stray shells during a battle against ethnic guerrillas.

But Myanmar denied it shelled Mae Sai, and accused the Thai military of backing ethnic Shan rebels, who Yangon says are the major drug producers and traffickers in the region.

On Thursday, the official New Light of Myanmar newspaper criticized Thailand over the border clashes with ethnic rebels by saying Thailand had not been a 'good neighbor' as it was aiding drug traffickers.

"Instead of lending us a helping hand in this task (of defeating the rebels), they are assisting the drug traffickers...which threaten the human race," it said in an editorial.

The editorial comes in the wake of a raid Wednesday by ethnic Shan State Army (SSA) insurgents who stormed a Myanmar military base near the Thai border, killing one Myanmar soldier and taking a second prisoner.

Referring loosely to the "current situation," the paper hinted that the Thai army was using the SSA to fight a proxy war, and that in the past Myanmar had demonstrated "good neighborliness" by routing insurgents.

Fresh clashes broke out on Wednesday between Myanmar soldiers and rebel ethnic guerrillas near the Thai border. Unlike earlier clashes the fighting neither involved Thai soldiers nor spilled over across the border.

A source in the SSA rebel said the guerrillas had attacked a Myanmar military outpost and killed 10 soldiers. There was no comment from the Myanmar authorities.

Foreign Minister Surakiart Sathirathai on Thursday hailed Khin Nyunt's remarks."This is a positive sign by the Myanmar leadership," Surakiart told reporters.

Asked if Yangon should formally write a letter to restore talks, Surakiart said: "The communication of a good gesture by national security leaders need not come in a form of an official letter."

Defense Minister Chavalit Yongchaiyudh blamed the local media on Thursday for the failure of recent talks with Myanmar.

Local television stations on Wednesday showed footage of a raid by SSA rebel ethnic guerrillas on a Myanmar military outpost near the Thai border.

The SSA has fought Myanmar government forces for several decades to try to secure an autonomous Shan state.

"We almost reached an agreement with them, but accidentally our media have shown the disgusting footage of SSA soldiers, which gives us a heavier burden in the talks," Chavalit told reporters.