Cambodia’s Prime Minister Hun Sen has lashed out at Thai Foreign Minister Kasit Piromya for allegedly branding him a “gentleman with the mind of a gangster”.
Thai diplomats had claimed the phrase was a routine compliment lost in translation.
“I am neither a gangster nor a gentleman, but a real man,” the prime minister said during an inauguration ceremony following the diplomatic spat. The row came just as military clashes between the two countries in disputed border area around an ancient temple claimed the lives of several soldiers on both sides.
The border tensions could adversely affect the fortunes of Cambodia’s border casinos, which rely largely in Thai and Vietnamese customers as locals are forbidden to play in them.