Prayut to visit Saudi Arabia to foster ties

Prayut to visit Saudi Arabia to foster ties

The trip will mark the first Thai-Saudi high-level meeting since the 'Blue Diamond Affair'

Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha walks in Government House on Jan 18, 2022. He will visit Saudi Arabia on Tuesday and Wednesday. (Government House photo)
Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha walks in Government House on Jan 18, 2022. He will visit Saudi Arabia on Tuesday and Wednesday. (Government House photo)

Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha will visit Saudi Arabia from Tuesday to Wednesday as a guest of Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman, Government House announced on Sunday.

Gen Prayut's official visit marked the first high-level talks between the two governments in more than three decades, it said.

The two-day visit was aimed at fostering bilateral ties between the two countries, it added.

Prince Mohammad bin Salman is also the Saudi Deputy Prime Minister and Defence Minister.

"The visit comes amid consultations that led to bringing views closer on issues of common interest," the Saudi ministry said in a statement on Sunday.

The visit is aimed at coordinating on those issues, it said, without elaborating.

It will be the first high-level meeting between the two countries since a diplomatic row over a jewellery theft nearly three decades ago.

Saudi Arabia downgraded its diplomatic relations with Bangkok following the theft in 1989 of around $20 million of jewels by a Thai janitor working in the palace of a Saudi prince, sparking what became known as the “Blue Diamond Affair”.

A large number of the gems stolen by the janitor, Kriengkrai Techamong - including the rare blue diamond - are yet to be recovered.

The theft of the jewels remains one of Thailand’s biggest unsolved mysteries and was followed by a bloody trail of destruction that saw some of the country’s top police generals implicated.

A year after the theft, three Saudi diplomats in Thailand were killed in three separate assassinations in a single night.

A month later, a Saudi businessman, Mohammad al-Ruwaili, who witnessed one of the shootings, disappeared and later in 2014, the Ratchadaphisek Criminal Court in Bangkok dismissed a case against five men, including a senior police officer, charged with murdering Ruwaili over the precious stones.

Thailand has been eager to normalise ties with the oil-rich Kingdom after the spat that has cost billions of dollars in two-way trade and tourism revenues and the loss of jobs to tens of thousands of migrant workers.

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