Cambodia hosts international ministerial meeting on transnational crimes

SIEM REAP, Cambodia, Nov. 16 (Xinhua) -- Cambodia on Monday hosts a four-day meeting of the Seventh ASEAN Ministerial Meeting on Transnational Crime (7th AMMTC), the Fourth ASEAN Ministerial Meeting on Transnational Crime with their dialogue partners from China, Japan and Republic of Korea, and also the First ASEAN plus China Ministerial Meeting on Transnational Crime.

In a statement released Monday by Cambodia's Ministry of Interior said the meeting began on Nov. 16 to 19 in Siem Reap province in northern Cambodia.

The statement said that the countries of the ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) share many common perspectives, and many common challenges.

"The relationship within ASEAN has always been characterized by understanding and cooperation. Together, within the ASEAN framework, ASEAN Member States (AMS) have faced many challenges and accomplished many things," the statement said, adding that today, ASEAN Member States face many challenges within their region. Chief among these is the problem of transnational crime. AMS realized that this is not Cambodia's problem alone. This is all ASEAN Member States face.

"And to meet this problem, and to effectively combat it, ASEAN recently have adopted an important new additional guiding mechanism, the ASEAN Charter," it said.

The perpetrators of international crime are well organized and highly motivated. The ASEAN countries, acting together, are even more organized and even more motivated than them.

The ASEAN Charter provides ASEAN Member States with strength and resolve to commit the ASEAN law enforcement to combat and prevent organized crimes.

ASEAN objective is clear: to stamp out international crime completely, in all its forms. For the safety and long term stability of the entire ASEAN region, ASEAN may not fail at this task. That demonstrates ASEAN: one vision, one identity and one community.

Founded in 1967, the ASEAN groups Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.

Cambodia, Thailand in new row

PHNOM PENH - CAMBODIA and Thailand reignited their diplomatic row on Monday over fugitive former Thai premier Thaksin Shinawatra, giving disputing accounts over consular visits to a Thai man accused of spying.

The Cambodian foreign ministry said a Thai embassy official was allowed on Monday to visit Siwarak Chothipong, 31, who was arrested on Thursday on charges of supplying details of Thaksin's flight schedule to his country's embassy.

But Bangkok, already furious over Phnom Penh's refusal to extradite Thaksin when he visited Cambodia last week, denied that its diplomats had been granted access to the man, an employee at the Cambodia Air Traffic Service.

'Today, we agreed to allow (a Thai diplomat) to visit the man at 2pm (0700 GMT, 3pm Singapore time) in the prison where he is being temporarily detained,' Cambodian foreign ministry spokesman Koy Kuong told AFP.

The spy allegations prompted Phnom Penh to expel the Thai embassy's first secretary on Thursday and Thailand reciprocated hours later.

Thaksin, who visited under his new role as economic adviser to Cambodia, left the country on Saturday, ending a contentious four-day visit that deepened a diplomatic storm between already bickering Bangkok and Phnom Penh. -- AFP