Phra Viharn National Park opened for visitors

This one comes as the first sigh of relief with Thailand and Cambodia coming to peaceful terms with each other regarding the Preah Vihar temple issue. Phra Viharn National Park that has been closed for the past seven months because of a border dispute has been reopened by the authorities. Phra Vihran National Park in Kantharalak district of Si Sa Ket province, 350 kilometres north-east of Bangkok, had been closed to the public since July 14, 2008.

‘It’s an arrangement at the local level,’ Thai Foreign Ministry spokesman Tharit Charungvat said. ‘We’re letting the local people try it to see how smoothly it goes.’

However, the park visitors will not be permitted to cross the border into Cambodia to see Preah Vihear temple, a 11th-century Hindu monument perched on a 525-metre-high cliff on the Dongrak mountain range that defines the Thai-Cambodian border.