Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Monday, August 26, 2002
Thai-Myanmar Border to be Oeopened Soon: FM
Thai Foreign Minister Surakiart Sathirathai said he is confident that the Thai-Myanmar border will be reopened after he meets his Myanmar counterpart Win Aung in Bangkok earlier next month.
Thai Foreign Minister Surakiart Sathirathai said he is confident that the Thai-Myanmar border willbe reopened after he meets his Myanmar counterpart Win Aung in Bangkok earlier next month.
He was quoted by the state-owned radio as saying Monday that the Myanmar government now "understood Thailand's policy of noninterference in its neighbors' domestic affairs" and bilateral relations are going back to normal.
Surakiart and Win Aung will head for the talks here on Sept. 6 just after attending the ongoing World Summit on Sustainable Development in South Africa and both governments have confirmed the date for the meeting.
This will be the third talks between the two ministers in recent two months on the issue of border reopening and others relating to mending bilateral ties.
Myanmar closed all bordering crossings with Thailand on May 20 after the military of the two countries accused each other of firing gunshots across the border and there had been no high-levelofficial contact between the two countries until the two foreign ministers held a ground-breaking meeting at the end of July in Brunei.
Surakiart met Win Aung again earlier this month during his visit to Myanmar.
During his stay in Thailand earlier next month, the Myanmar foreign minister will also meet Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra on bilateral issues.
Surakiart noted that Thailand made no concessions to Myanmar inexchange of reopening the border.
Thai officials said both sides are now confident that the upcoming talks between the two foreign ministers will renew bilateral cooperation in drug suppression, border demarcation and repatriation of illegal immigrants.