Thailand’s new foreign minister was immediately under pressure on assuming the role, after lawmakers criticized his ties with protesters who commandeered the capital’s airports.
Kasit Piromya, a 64-year-old graduate of Georgetown University, appeared at rallies organized by the People’s Alliance for Democracy (PAD), which began an eight-day blockade of Suvarnabhumi International
Airport last month.
The airport closure left an estimated 350,000 people stranded, and new Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva has since said protesters must be held legally accountable for their actions.
The PAD, whose earlier demonstrations against former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra preceded his ouster in a coup in 2006, took to the streets in May, accusing the government of acting as a corrupt proxy for Thaksin.
“I want to tell him [Thaksin] that he will not win this fight. We will not step back,” Kasit said at a protest rally earlier this year near Government House, which the group besieged in late August.
Kasit has since defended his role in the protests, saying that he only joined up “to help society have good governance.”
“Joining the PAD was not a sin because millions of people had also joined it to help uproot corruption,” he said in quotes reported in the Bangkok Post newspaper on Saturday.
The foreign minister began his career at the ministry in 1968 and has since held ambassadorial roles in Germany, Japan and the US.
As a staunch nationalist, Kasit criticized the previous government’s handling of a crisis with Cambodia, triggered with the neighboring nation’s application for World Heritage status for an ancient temple on a disputed border.
Thailand says that it owns part of the temple’s land and the protracted dispute led to a deployment of soldiers from both sides to the area, resulting in a clash on Oct. 15 that left four dead.
But despite Kasit’s controversial stance, his experience has made him a key player in Abhisit’s Cabinet, which has been otherwise criticized for its raft of relatively inexperienced players.
Kasit said before his appointment that his first task would be hosting an ASEAN summit next month or in February, but said he also planned to press for Thaksin’s extradition.
“I have to talk to the countries which allow Thaksin to use their soil to launch a smear criticism against his homeland,” he said.
Thaksin fled into exile in August as corruption cases piled up against him, and he was sentenced on Oct. 21 to two years in jail for breaching graft laws by helping his wife buy state-owned land.
But questions will be asked about Kasit’s suitability for the post given Abhisit’s vow to reconcile Thailand’s warring factions.
“Kasit was always on the PAD stage and he is now rewarded for his repeated fierce attacks against Thaksin,” said Surapong Tovichakchaikul, a lawmaker with the Thaksin-aligned Puea Thai party.
“There is no doubt this is a conspiracy among Democrats, the military and PAD to crush Thaksin,” he said.
Abhisit’s coalition was created with former allies of Thaksin and small coalition parties who defected from supporting the previous government, which was ousted by a court ruling on Dec. 3.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
UNREST: The authorities in Turkey arrested 13 Turkish journalists in five days, deported a BBC correspondent and on Thursday arrested a reporter from Sweden Waving flags and chanting slogans, many hundreds of thousands of anti-government demonstrators on Saturday rallied in Istanbul, Turkey, in defence of democracy after the arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu which sparked Turkey’s worst street unrest in more than a decade. Under a cloudless blue sky, vast crowds gathered in Maltepe on the Asian side of Turkey’s biggest city on the eve of the Eid al-Fitr celebration which started yesterday, marking the end of Ramadan. Ozgur Ozel, chairman of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), which organized the rally, said there were 2.2 million people in the crowd, but
The US government has banned US government personnel in China, as well as family members and contractors with security clearances, from any romantic or sexual relationships with Chinese citizens, The Associated Press (AP) has learned. Four people with direct knowledge of the matter told the AP about the policy, which was put into effect by departing US ambassador Nicholas Burns in January shortly before he left China. The people would speak only on condition of anonymity to discuss details of a confidential directive. Although some US agencies already had strict rules on such relationships, a blanket “nonfraternization” policy, as it is known, has
OPTIONS: Asked if one potential avenue to a third term was having J.D. Vance run for the top job and then pass the baton to him, Trump said: ‘That’s one,’ among others US President Donald Trump on Sunday that “I’m not joking” about trying to serve a third term, the clearest indication he is considering ways to breach a constitutional barrier against continuing to lead the country after his second term ends at the beginning of 2029. “There are methods which you could do it,” Trump said in a telephone interview with NBC News from Mar-a-Lago, his private club. He elaborated later to reporters on Air Force One from Florida to Washington that “I have had more people ask me to have a third term, which in a way is a fourth term
RSS