Downing Street Says

» Wednesday, September 20, 2006

Thailand

Asked whether the Thai Prime Minister had been in touch with the Prime Minister, the Prime Minister’s Official Spokesman (PMOS) said no. He believed that Prime Minister Thaksin was on a plane that would land in London later today. He also understood that Prime Minister Thaksin had relatives in London and was coming in a private capacity. We were not aware of what his intentions were beyond that. There had, as yet, been no requests for meetings.

Asked what the Prime Minister’s position was on the situation, the PMOS said that Margaret Beckett had yesterday expressed the government’s concern at developments in Thailand. Our general approach was that we wanted to see a return to democracy and as quickly as possible. There were elections scheduled for October and November and we were actively trying to find out whether those elections would go ahead. We believed they should.

Put that given the Prime Minister’s commitment to democracy that his statement of support should be stronger, the PMOS said that there was a strong commitment to democracy and this was why we wanted to make sure that the scheduled elections went ahead. This was why we were actively seeking clarification on what was happening in Bangkok. It was a confused picture that would take a few days to get clarity.

Asked how long the Thai Prime Minister would be able to stay, the PMOS said that he was not the person to ask about such details, but he understood that Prime Minister Thaksin had relatives in this country and that he had made private visits here before to see them. Asked if he would be allowed to seek asylum, the PMOS said that people should wait to see what happened rather than get into speculation.

No Comments »

No comments yet.

RSS feed for comments on this post.

Post a public comment

Name (required)
E-mail (required)
(You must give an email address, but it will not be displayed to the public.)
Website
(You may give your website, and it will be displayed to the public.)

Comments:

This is not a way of contacting the Prime Minister. If you would like to contact the Prime Minister, go to the 10 Downing Street official site.

Privacy note: Shortly after posting, your name and comment will be displayed on the site. This means that people searching for your name on the Internet will be able to find and read your comment.

Original PMOS briefings are © Crown Copyright. Crown Copyright material is reproduced with the permission of the Controller of HMSO and the Queen's Printer for Scotland. Click-use licence number C02W0004089. Material is reproduced from the original 10 Downing Street source, but may not be the most up-to-date version of the briefings, which might be revised at the original source. Users should check with the original source in case of revisions. Comments are © Copyright contributors. Everything else is © Copyright Downing Street Says.