BANGKOK, Feb. 20 Kyodo

A high-ranking official of the Tourism Authority of Thailand on Monday welcomed the initiative of a former Japanese military interpreter who was involved in the construction of the infamous Thailand-Burma railway during World War II to seek to have the ruins of the railway designated as a World Heritage site.

''It is a very good idea. However, we need to secure cooperation from other countries to win approval for the World Heritage designation,'' TAT's Executive Director of Product Promotion Department Charubun Pananon told Takashi Nagase, the 88-year-old English teacher from Kurashiki, Okayama Prefecture.

Charubun stressed that Thailand would have to consult on the plan with Britain, the Netherlands and Australia, whose thousands of nationals perished while they were forced to construct the 415-kilometer railway linking Thailand and Burma, now Myanmar.

The railway is known as the ''Death Railway'' as about 16,000 Allied prisoners-of-war, including British, Dutch and Australian nationals died along with 80,000 to 100,000 Asian forced laborers while building it...read more.