Border dispute shows no signs of easing

Phnom Penh: Cambodia accused Thailand yesterday of sending more troops to their joint border as a smouldering dispute over a 900-year-old temple showed no signs of easing.

"Thailand has continued to increase its military build-up," government spokesman Khieu Kanharith said, labelling Bangkok the aggressor in a spat that has sparked fears of a military clash.

"The situation is not easing," Kanharith said, adding that Cambodia had 800 soldiers along the border compared with around 3,000 Thai troops.

The Thai Foreign Ministry said Bangkok had only 400 men facing as many as 1,700 Cambodian soldiers. Both sides have moved artillery into the area, occupied by remnants of Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge guerrilla army in the 1980s and 1990s.

At the heart of the dispute is a 4.6 square kilometre stretch of scrubland around the Preah Vihear temple on a jungle-clad escarpment that forms a natural boundary between the southeast Asian countries.

The temple itself is claimed by both countries but was awarded to Cambodia in 1962 by the International Court of Justice in The Hague, a ruling that has rankled in Thailand ever since.

France and Vietnam said on Wednesday the United Nations Security Council would hold a special meeting in response to a Cambodian request for it to take up the issue, although it was not clear if it would lead to formal Council involvement.