The article "Dispute over temple ensnared in Thai politics" (July 21) ignored some salient facts, resulting in a misleading picture of Thailand's position on the standoff over the temple of Preah Vihear.
Thailand has strictly complied with the International Court of Justice's 1962 ruling, which pertained only to the temple, not to the boundary line. In 2000, Thailand and Cambodia set up a joint border commission to survey and demarcate the two countries' common land border. Pending this work, both sides agreed not to do anything that might change the environment of the frontier zone. However, Cambodia put in troops, a community and various structures. Thailand lodged repeated protests, to no avail.
When Thailand learned of Cambodia's desire to list the temple as a World Heritage site, we strongly urged Cambodia to do it jointly. This would have made the most sense: Natural access to the temple is from the Thai side and the rest of the complex is within Thailand.
Cambodia, however, decided to go it alone. In its initial application to the World Heritage site committee, Thai territory was included in the area to be designated. After Thailand protested, Cambodia submitted a revised map, proposing for designation only the temple proper. Since it no longer intruded into Thai territory, this was the map that Thailand "signed off on." We had to withdraw our support, however, following the Thai Administrative Court's interim injunction on the issue. This had no effect on the World Heritage committee's decision. While recognizing Thailand's repeated calls for a joint nomination and withdrawal of support, the committee approved the temple's designation on the World Heritage list on its own merits
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