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Canwest News Service
The rumbling row between Thailand and Cambodia took another sharp dip last week when Cambodia took over the Thai-owned air traffic control company that operates Phnom Penh airport. The Cambodian government of Prime Minister Hun Sen told all the Thai employees of the Thai-owned Cambodia Air Traffic Services to stay home. The move came after a Thai engineer working for the company at Phnom Penh airport was charged with spying. He is alleged to have given a Thai diplomat details of the flight arrangements to and from Cambodia of exiled former Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra. Thaksin was ousted in a military coup in Bangkok in 2006 and has subsequently been tried, convicted and sentenced to two years in prison for corruption. But Thaksin has remained in exile and defied the Bangkok government's attempts to extradite him. The latest episode in a long-running spat between Bangkok and Phnom Penh came to a head when Hun Sen announced he is employing Thaksin as an economic adviser to the Cambodian government. As the storm boiled up both governments withdrew senior diplomats from each other's capital.
