No plan to return Thaksin's diplomatic passport, says PM

No plan to return Thaksin's diplomatic passport, says PM

Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra has dismissed rumours that the Foreign Ministry was considering returning a diplomatic passport to her brother, ousted former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra.

She said the government did not have such a policy to interfere with the Foreign Ministry's authority to consider granting or revoking a diplomatic passport.
Foreign Minister Surapong Towijakchaikul said he knew nothing about the reports. He had yet to start his work at the ministry.
If the ministry really proposed returning Thaksin's red passport, Mr Surapong said he would look into the matter.
Chavanond Intarakomalyasut, spokesman for the Democrat Party, said the government would face hard questions if it attempted to return the diplomatic passport to Thaksin.
The Foreign Ministry did not have full authority to decide the matter because it would have to base any decision on information about Thaksin's 2008 conviction for corruption offences from the police, prosecutors and the court.
The three bodies would have to alter Thaksin's sentence record before the ministry could return his red passport.
"I'd like the new foreign minister and prime minister to think about the PM's promise that she would not do anything to protect the interest of a single person [over the public interest]," he said.
The rumours suggested the government was pandering to Thaksin's interests.
Meanwhile, Mr Surapong has commented on a meeting between himself and Japanese ambassador to Thailand Seiji Kojima on Thursday.
Mr Surapong said Mr Kojima contacted him for the meeting through former prime minister Somchai Wongsawat.
The meeting was held after reports emerged that the government had asked Japan to grant Thaksin a special entry visa to allow him to visit the country.
Mr Surapong said the meeting was treated as an informal opportunity to get to know each other. He denied pressuring Japan to grant the permit.
At the meeting, he was asked whether the new government would maintain the same policy of the the former government that banned Thaksin from entering Japan, Mr Surapong said.
He said his answer was that the Pheu Thai-led government did not have such a policy, so the Japanese embassy would have to decide on its own if it would grant Thaksin a Japanese visa.
The Thai government could not force the Japanese embassy to grant Thaksin a permit to enter Japan, he said.
Thaksin now holds a Montenegrin passport and does not have to apply for visas through Thailand.
Thaksin had been invited by a Japanese private sector organisation to visit Japan on a field trip to tsunami-affected sites and to give a lecture on Thai-Japanese trade, said Mr Surapong.
Noppadon Pattama, former foreign minister and Thaksin's legal adviser, said he did not know about the meeting between Mr Surapong and the Japanese ambassador to Thailand.
But Mr Noppadon confirmed that Thaksin was invited by an educational institution in Japan to give a lecture there and to visit the areas affected by the March tsunami.
"I'm not going to criticise the way Mr Surapong works and will give him time to settle down into his job," said Mr Noppadon.
An urgent task of the Foreign Ministry should be boosting relations with neighbouring countries, and particularly with Cambodia, with which Thailand has an ongoing border dispute.

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