Prayuth: Just kidding around about foreign relations with US

Junta chief Prayuth Chan-ocha retracted earlier comments yesterday about being banned from traveling to the United States.

The general-cum-prime minister said he was just having a go with the Americans at a conference organize by a U.S. university on Friday when he said that he was barred from entering the United States because he overthrew Thailand’s previous civilian government in a coup.

“I was only joking, as many participants at the conference were Americans,” he said in an account from Thai PBS.

Prayuth suggested the media should be less serious-face about his comments.

“I just teased them on whether or not they would deter me from going to the United States while I do not bar them from doing business here and they laughed,” he added.

Prayuth said he’ll travel to New York in September to attend a United Nations General Assembly meeting.

Photo: Thai PBS