By ANTARA News,
Phnom Penh : Cambodia on Wednesday expressed “regret” over the postponement by crisis-hit Thailand of a summit of the Southeast Asian bloc ASEAN scheduled for mid-December, a government spokesman said.
Thailand said on Tuesday it was delaying the meeting until March due to its ongoing political turmoil, which saw protesters occupy both of the capital`s airports until Wednesday.
“The Prime Minister said we feel regret as a member of ASEAN that we cannot hold the summit,” Cambodian government spokesman Khieu Kanharith told reporters.
“Right now, we have not yet been formally informed about the postponement, but we see (Thailand) has no government,” he said, adding that Cambodia hopes Thailand can “solve the problem very soon”.
Thailand`s constitutional court on Tuesday disbanded the ruling party and banned Prime Minister Somchai Wongsawat from politics for five years in a vote fraud case.
Malaysia earlier Wednesday raised doubts over whether Thailand would be able to host the ASEAN summit at all.
Singapore urged that it be held earlier than March, preferably in January, and said that consideration should be given to staging the summit at the Jakarta-based secretariat of the 10-member ASEAN.
In 2006, the Philippines rescheduled a December summit for the following month after two powerful storms threatened to batter its central region, although some sources said it was linked to security threats.
ASEAN groups Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.