Thai PM to visit Saudi Arabia as diplomatic relations thaw

Thailand’s Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha attends a household picture session with new cupboard ministers (not pictured) on the Authorities Home in Bangkok, Thailand, March 30, 2021. REUTERS/Athit Perawongmetha/File Photograph

RIYADH, Jan 23 (Reuters) – Thailand’s prime minister will go to Saudi Arabia on Tuesday, the Saudi international ministry mentioned, in what would be the first high-level assembly between the 2 international locations since a diplomatic row over a jewelry theft almost three a long time in the past.

Saudi Arabia downgraded its diplomatic relations with Bangkok following the theft in 1989 of round $20 million of jewels by a Thai janitor working within the palace of a Saudi prince, in what grew to become often known as the “Blue Diamond Affair”.

A lot of the gems, together with the uncommon blue diamond, are but to be recovered.

Thailand’s Premier Prayuth Chan-ocha will begin a two-day go to to Saudi Arabia on Tuesday on the invitation of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the Saudi ministry mentioned in a press release on Sunday.

“The go to comes amid consultations that led to bringing views nearer on problems with widespread curiosity,” the ministry mentioned.

The go to is aimed toward coordinating on these points, it mentioned, with out elaborating.

The theft of the jewels stays one among Thailand’s greatest unsolved mysteries and was adopted by a bloody path of destruction that noticed a few of Thailand’s prime police generals implicated.

A 12 months after the theft, three Saudi diplomats in Thailand had been killed in three separate assassinations in a single evening.

A month later, a Saudi businessman, Mohammad al-Ruwaili, who witnessed one of many shootings, disappeared and later in 2014, a Thai legal courtroom dismissed a case towards 5 males, together with a senior police officer, charged with murdering Ruwaili over the valuable stones.

Thailand has been wanting to normalise ties with the oil-rich Kingdom after the spat that has price billions of {dollars} in two-way commerce and tourism revenues and the lack of jobs to tens of hundreds of Thai migrant employees.

Reporting by Nadine Awadalla, writing by Aziz El Yaakoubi
Enhancing by Gareth Jones and Susan Fenton

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