Thai PM to visit Saudi Arabia as diplomatic relations thaw

Thailand's Premier Prayuth Chan-ocha will travel to Saudi Arabia for meetings with the Crown Prince, to discuss ending a diplomatic row, after the theft of a diamond.
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Saudi Arabia downgraded its diplomatic relations with Bangkok in 1989 [Getty]

Thailand's prime minister will visit Saudi Arabia on Tuesday, the Saudi foreign ministry said, in what 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, in what became known as the “Blue Diamond Affair”.

A large number of the gems, including the rare blue diamond, are yet to be recovered.

Thailand's Premier Prayuth Chan-ocha will start a two-day visit to Saudi Arabia on Tuesday at the invitation of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the Saudi ministry said in a statement on Sunday.

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

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

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 Thailand’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, a Thai criminal court 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 Thai migrant workers.