Saudi Arabia on Tuesday ordered the restoration of full diplomatic ties with Thailand and said the countries agreed to trade ambassadors, closing the chapter on three decades of mistrust and hostility between the nations that stemmed from a sensational jewelry heist.
The rapprochement came during Thai Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha’s official visit to the kingdom, which marked the highest-level meeting between the countries since relations soured over the 1989 political scandal.
Saudi Arabia downgraded its diplomatic relations with Thailand over the theft that led to a string of mysterious killings and became known as the Blue Diamond affair.
Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman, the country’s de facto leader, agreed to bury the hatchet with Prayuth and boost the nations’ economic, security and political ties, said a statement published by the official Saudi Press Agency (SPA) late on Tuesday after talks at the royal palace.
The countries are to explore joint investment in fields ranging from energy and petrochemicals to tourism and hospitality, it said.
Tourism is a key element of Vision 2030, Saudi Arabia’s economic reform plan meant to wean the kingdom off oil. Saudi Arabian Airlines said it would start direct flights from Riyadh to Bangkok in May, promoting Thailand in a Twitter post as “the land of culture.”
In 1989, a priceless 50-carat blue diamond was among an estimated US$20 million of gems and jewelry pilfered by a Thai janitor from a Saudi Arabian prince’s palace in the heist that wrecked relations between the countries.
The kingdom stopped issuing and renewing visas for hundreds of thousands of Thai workers, suspended permits for thousands of Thai Muslims hoping to make the annual pilgrimage to Mecca and warned its citizens not to travel to Thailand.
Three Saudi Arabian diplomats seeking the valuables’ return were shot dead in Bangkok. A Bangkok-based Saudi Arabian businessman believed to have been hunting for the missing jewels also disappeared, and was presumed killed.
No one was convicted for the killings.
The Thai government on Tuesday expressed “regret over the tragic incidents that occurred to Saudi citizens in Thailand between 1989 and 1990,” and stressed “its keenness to resolve issues related to these events,” the joint statement said.
The Thai police claimed to have solved the case, but many of the jewels they sent back to Riyadh were fake. Thai media crackled with reports that the wives of top officials had been spotted wearing diamond necklaces that bore an uncanny resemblance to the stolen jewels. The fabled blue diamond was never recovered.
Thailand promised that it would raise cases with competent authorities if any “new and relevant evidence” related to the killings emerged, SPA said.
The saga exposed the graft and abuse of power that runs rampant in Thailand’s police forces, as speculation mounted that senior officers and members of the elite had kept the stones and ordered a cover-up.
Thailand, deprived by the dispute of billions of US dollars in badly needed tourism revenues and workers’ remittances, has long wanted to patch up relations with oil-rich Saudi Arabia.
Prince Mohammad has increasingly focused on winning allies abroad and mending rifts with regional rivals, including Iran, Qatar, Turkey and Pakistan.
Saudi Arabia, in a push to modernize and diversify its oil-dependent economy, is trying to draw foreign tourists and investors, and overhaul its reputation as one of the world’s most closed countries with a bleak human rights record.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese