Thai-Cambodia spat trumps ASEAN talks with big powers

By Bill Tarrant

SINGAPORE (Reuters) - A smouldering border dispute between Thailand and Cambodia grabbed the limelight on Tuesday as Southeast Asian nations began meetings with Asia-Pacific powers on economic and security issues.

Foreign ministers from the Association of South East Asian Nations were meeting with their counterparts from China, Japan and South Korea on Tuesday for talks that would certainly include regional diplomacy over North Korea's nuclear programme.

But with Thailand and Cambodia in a military showdown over an 11th-century temple on their border claimed by both nations, ASEAN has been distracted from big power diplomacy by one of the periodic intramural spats that feeds skepticism about the 41-year-old group's ambitions to become a coherent political and economic bloc.

Ministers from Thailand and Cambodia briefed their ASEAN counterparts at a working lunch on Tuesday about the situation after both sides sent hundreds of soldiers and heavy artillery to the border in recent days.

Cambodia wants ASEAN to get involved but Thailand does not want to internationalise the dispute, diplomats said afterward.

"The lunch was very, very unofficial, very informal, talking about many, many issues," ASEAN Secretary General Surin Pitsuwan told reporters.

"Just expressing some views on issues that would affect the region, that would affect ASEAN, that would have some implications on the image and credibility of ASEAN."

The dispute is testing ASEAN's unity while it is in the midst of ratifying a charter that would turn the 41-year-old grouping into an EU-style, rules-based organisation.