Bangkok - Thailand hopes to normalize diplomatic relations with Saudi Arabia by "concluding the Blue Diamond" case, involving at least four unsolved murders of Saudi diplomats and millions of dollars'-worth of missing royal jewelry, state media said Sunday. Thailand's new Foreign Minister Noppodon Pattama has pinpointed a restoration of close ties with Saudi Arabia as one of his priorities for his "proactive" diplomacy, said the state-run Thai News Agency.
Thai-Saudi relations have been poor for the past two decades on account of Thailand's failure to adequately investigate and explain the murder of four Saudi diplomats in Bangkok and disappearance of a Saudi businessman in 1989, whose fates were allegedly linked to the so-called Blue Diamond.
The legendary diamond was among several valuable stones and jewelry pieces stolen by Thai national Kriangkrai Techamong, from a the palace of Saudi Prince in the late 1980s when he was employed as a gardener in the Arab kingdom.
Kriangkrai allegedly shipped the stolen objects to Thailand and then returned home.
An investigation led to the seizure of the stolen jewels by Thai police, but when the items were returned to Saudi Arabia many turned out to be fakes, including the returned Blue Diamond.
A senior Thai police officer was found guilty of murdering the wife and son of a Thai jeweler deemed connected with the case, but the stolen items have never been retrieved.
Shortly after the case Saudi Arabia banned Thai labourers and prohibited its nationals from visiting Thailand as tourists, depriving the kingdom of millions of dollars in lost income.
Noppodon, who became foreign minister of February 6, has vowed to solve the decades'-old case in an effort to normalize relations with Saudi Arabia, as part of his mission to improve economic relations with various countries.
