The cache, including missiles and rocket-propelled grenades, was discovered after the pilot from Belarus and four other crew from Kazakhstan landed for refuelling at Bangkok's domestic Don Mueang airport on Friday, officials said.

"We told them that they have been charged with possession of weapons for war," said national police spokesman Pongsapat Pongcharoen. "They said they had no idea what they were transporting."

The charge carries a maximum sentence of life imprisonment.

"We will strictly follow our own laws and UN resolutions. Security and intelligence services are continuing to investigate," Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva said of Thailand's biggest-ever weapons seizure.

"We are not yet clear why they were transporting these weapons, we only know they were due to refuel in Sri Lanka (after Bangkok)," Abhisit told reporters.

"It is not yet clear if this is terrorist activity," he added.

The plane began its journey in North Korea's capital Pyongyang. Abhisit said the weapons came from a North Korean company and the plane was registered in Georgia.

Thai media reported it was a Russian-made IL-76 cargo plane. Government spokesman Panitan Wattanayagorn said it carried more than 30 tonnes of North Korean weaponry, in breach of UN sanctions.

"UN resolution 1874 bans the transfer of weapons from North Korea and identifies four steps that we must follow -- inspecting, seizing and destroying the weapons, and informing the UN of our find," Panitan said.

If necessary, the Thai government would bring in UN experts to go over the massive haul, he said. "It will take some time."

Panitan said the weapons had been transferred to Takhli air force base in the central Thai province of Nakhon Sawan.

The suspects will be kept at Bangkok's Crime Suppression Bureau before appearing in court Monday, when police will ask to detain them for a further 12 days as investigations continue, said police spokesman Pongsapat.

"We will object to bail, this is a serious crime. We will see what the court will decide and if it agrees with us, they will be moved to a prison," he told AFP.

The men had been questioned in the presence of diplomats from the Kazakh embassy, a Russian translator, and a state-provided lawyer, he added.

Abhisit said the crew requested permission to land for refuelling in Bangkok and then lied to inspectors about the plane's cargo, saying it carried only oil-drilling equipment.

"They committed two crimes, firstly they gave false information about their cargo, and secondly that cargo was found to be weapons," he said.

"We received the tip-off from intelligence reports that said this plane was suspicious. When the plane refuelled, we searched it and found the weapons."

Thai television channels reported that US officials had tipped off Thai authorities but a spokesman for the US embassy in Bangkok, Michael Turner, said he was unaware of the incident.

Deputy Prime Minister Suthep Thaugsuban told reporters the weapons had nothing to do with Thailand's domestic security.

The government is fighting a six-year-old insurgency by separatists in the country's Muslim-majority south that has left 4,000 people dead, involving mostly guns and home-made bombs.

"This is a sensitive issue involving domestic and international laws, and it also involves several countries," Suthep added, vowing that Thailand would proceed "transparently".

earlier related report
N.Korea positive over talks with Japan: US envoy
Tokyo (AFP) Dec 12, 2009 - A senior US envoy told Japan on Saturday that North Korea showed a "forward-looking" stance to resuming dialogue with Tokyo, when he held ice-breaking meetings in Pyongyang.

Stephen Bosworth held talks with Japanese Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada shortly after he arrived in Tokyo following his meetings with North Korean officials from December 8 to 10.

Bosworth told Okada that during the meetings, he raised Tokyo's demand for the release of all Japanese citizens kidnapped by North Korean agents during the Cold War era.

"Bosworth explained that North Korea showed a forward-looking stance to dialogue between Japan and North Korea on the abduction and other issues," Okada told reporters after he met Bosworth at the foreign ministry.

But Okada said Pyongyang stopped short of providing Bosworth with any proposals for conditions on resuming talks with Tokyo.

The emotive issue has long been a major stumbling block to resuming stalled talks between Tokyo and isolated Pyongyang, which has raised tensions in the region with its repeated missile and nuclear tests.

Japan's Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama, who took power in September ending decades of conservative rule, has vowed that his centre-left government would push to clear up the fate of 12 people who remain missing.

During the meeting with Okada, Bosworth also said that he was able to hold a "quite straight and pragmatic" dialogue with North Korean officials during his stay in Pyongyang.

"(Bosworth) told me that he held a different impression on (North Korea) from the past," Okada said.

"Bosworth told me that it is extremely important for the five countries -- all participants of the six-way talks except North Korea -- to form a united front and take concerted action firmly," Okada said.

"I don't think we will be immediately close to a breakthrough ... but all we have to do is to patiently insist our demand."

Bosworth is to leave for Moscow on Sunday as part of a lightning tour to brief officials in the countries involved in stalled denuclearisation talks with North Korea about his meeting in Pyongyang.

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