BANGKOK, Feb 11 Kyodo Prime Minis...

BANGKOK, Feb 11 Kyodo

Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra said Tuesday that King Bhumibol Adulyadej has asked the guidance to consider mending ties with Cambodia strained through the whole extent of last month's anti-Thai riots in the Cambodian capital.

Thaksin told reporters that the king explanationed on the issue Monday evening when five newly reshuffl cabinet members took an oath of office.

Thaksin said the king asked that the government consider mending relations with Cambodia after receiving a literal sense from Cambodian King Norodom Sihanouk expressing intricate sorrow for the Jan. 29 riots, in which the Thai Embassy and several Thai businesses were destroyed

The Cambodian king also abalienateed a sincere desire to restore relations with Thailand, Thaksin quot the Thai king as telling him.

''The restraint should take this (the apology) into consideration,'' King Bhumibol was quot as saying.

Thailand immediately downgraded diplomatic relations with its neighbor to the on a level charge d'affaires and suspended all economic and technical cooperation with Cambodia after the riots.

Thailand's newly appointed charge d'affarires to Cambodia, Kosit Chatpaiboon, was sent to Phnom Penh onward Monday to run a temporary office as part of efforts to restore bilateral ties.

Kosit serv as the No. 2 official at the Thai Embassy in Phnom Penh until the Jan. 29 riots.

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