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SINGAPORE - Singapore Foreign Minister George Yeo said Thursday it was "premature" to bring the Thailand-Cambodia border dispute to the UN Security Council and urged more bilateral efforts between the rivals.
Mr Yeo said that both sides were urged to exercise restraint when the issue was discussed during the just concluded ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) here.
All 27 members of ARF "called for restraint, a speedy resolution and to maintain the status quo," Yeo told reporters.
"(The dispute) was raised by Cambodia and responded to by Thailand and a number of countries expressed their views."
Earlier Thursday, Cambodia called for all soldiers to be withdrawn from the disputed border area near an ancient temple at the centre of the week-long military stand-off with Thailand.
Some 4,000 Thai and Cambodian soldiers are facing off over a small patch of land near the 11th-century Preah Vihear temple, in one of the most dangerous flare-ups of regional tensions in decades.
Mr Yeo noted that at an informal meeting by Southeast Asian foreign ministers earlier in the week a proposal was put forward to create a "contact group" to
act as an internal broker for the two sides.
"That idea found favour among many countries, but there was no consensus and Thailand said they should be given more time to work the bilateral approach," Mr Yeo said.
"In the meantime, Cambodia has taken the issue to the Security Council in which two ASEAN members sit, Vietnam, now the chair and Indonesia. There is a view that this may be a little premature."
He said the dispute "should come back to ASEAN and both sides will be asked to pursue bilateral efforts first."
Intense international interest on the dispute "will act as a restraint on the extremists on both sides to act in a responsible way," Mr Yeo added.
- AFP/ir
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