Cabinet moves to appease Preah Vihear protesters

The revision was made before the government was grilled in Parliament in the afternoon by the opposition over its support of Cambodia's application to list the ancient temple as a Unesco World Heritage site.

Preah Vihear was on top of the agenda of the censure debate.

The government defended its decision to endorse Cambodia's new map of the temple area because it excluded the 4.6 square kilometres overlapping with Thailand that had been included in the old map, which sparked public protest.

However, the Samak government's endorsement of the latest map drew outrage from the public, particularly protesters who have laid siege to Government House.

The map was made public late last week by Foreign Minister Noppadon Pattama, who claimed to have defended Thailand's sovereignty by preventing Cambodia from including the 4.6 sq m in the map to Unesco.

A Cabinet source said in the Cabinet's weekly meeting they had agreed to change the word in the resolution from "map" of the Preah Vihear territory to "diagram".

They also asked the Foreign Ministry to add into the Thai-Cambodian Joint Communiqué the exact size of the Preah Vihear Temple.

The Administrative Court and Unesco's regional office accepted petitions from opponents of the plan for Cambodia to nominate the Khmer temple ruins as a World Heritage site.