Turkish Foreign Ministry says Thailand still not talking

By Max Constant

BANGKOK

The day after Thai Police claimed that a chief suspect in the Aug. 17 Bangkok bombing had fled to Turkey, Turkey's Ministry of Foreign Affairs has said Ankara still awaits official notification.

“We have not officially received any information about this subject from Thailand," Tanju Bilgic, the ministry's spokesperson, told press during a weekly briefing in Ankara on Tuesday.

"Our ambassador has delivered a diplomatic note investigating if this information is true or not to Thailand's Foreign Ministry by going there this morning. We are doing the necessary search for it.”

The incident is the third this month in which a Turkish official has highlighted what appears to be an apparent betrayal of diplomatic protocol by Thailand's military government.

Turkish authorities in Ankara told Anadolu Agency earlier this month that despite appealing to Thai officials for information on the arrest of a suspect media claimed to be Turkish - despite the fact he was using obviously forged Turkish travel documents - they received no response.

The source -- who was not named according to Foreign Ministry protocol -- said that Turkey was then left with little option but to seek the help of international criminal police organization Interpol in reaching Thai authorities.

Diplomatic protocol dictates that when arrest warrants are issued by one country concerning another’s citizens - or claims are made that a suspected criminal has fled to that country - the second country is immediately alerted, however in this instance this appears not to have been the case.

Last week, Turkey's Embassy in Thailand also said it had yet to be officially notified of arrest warrants for two of its alleged citizens, even though they had been apparently issued by Bangkok.

Ambassador Osman Bulent said the embassy had asked for clarification from the Thai Foreign Ministry on the issue and was still "waiting for an official reply".

"There are also certain press reports with regard to arrest warrants having been issued for certain [alleged] Turkish nationals. Up to now this Embassy has not received any official notification from the Thai authorities concerning the arrest warrants," he added.

On Monday, Thai police spokesman Gen. Prawut Thavornsiri told reporters that Abdurahman Abudusataer, nicknamed Ishan, had left Thailand for Bangladesh on the eve of the bombing.

He added that the suspect had then departed Dhaka on Aug. 30 for New Delhi, from where he'd flown to Abu Dhabi with Istanbul as his final destination.

An arrest warrant was issued by a Thai court against Abudusataer on Saturday for “illegal possession of explosives”.

He was initially thought to have been the “bombing organizer” by police who relied on information given during interrogation by one of the three detained suspects, Yusufu Mireaili - who holds a Chinese passport with the same birthplace.

Bilgic underlined Tuesday that Turkey could only investigate a suspect after receiving information from the country concerned.

“We are in contact with the Thailand ambassador in Ankara. I cannot say anything about this suspect has entered in Turkey or not, based on some media reports.”

- Anadolu Agency correspondent Nilay Kar contributed to the story from Istanbul.