Cambodia Agrees to Indonesia's "Package Solution" Proposal

JAKARTA, KOMPAS.com - Cambodia has agreed to Indonesia’s "Package Solution" proposal as the basis for its further efforts to help find a peaceful solution to the Thai-Cambodian border conflict, Foreign Affairs Ministry spokesman Michael Tene said on Friday.

The Package Solution was proposed last May 9 during a trilateral meeting between Froeign Minister Marty Natalegawa and his counterpart from Cambodia Hor Namhong and from Thailand Kasit Piromya. After the meeting, both Thai and Cambodia ministers promised they would convey Indonesia’s proposal to higher authorities in their respective countries.

"Recently I received word that Cambodia has agreed to the package solution while Thailand needs more time to decide internally whether or not they will accept Indonesia’s proposal," Michael said.

Earlier, Marty Natalegawa had said under the Package Solution Indonesia would no longer ask one country to do one step and then the other country will follow by taking the next step. "Instead, we will identify a number of steps or measures that need to be taken and put them in little clusters and propose them to both Thailand and Cambodia," the minister said.

He said Indonesia had proposed that both countries take synergic steps at the same time without having to discuss again who was doing what first. The minister took as example Thailand may submit formal diplomatic note containing agreement over the Terms of Reference (TOR) about the deployment of Indonesian observers to the border area.

At the same time, both countries may announce that they will start the General Border Committee (GBC) and the Joint Boundary Commission (JBC) soon and consider relocating their troops from along the border area. Marty stated Indonesia had set a clear timeline in each of the proposed clusters with the hope that every step taken by the two sides will remain in motion.