That translation of what the PM's spokesperson said is not...

That translation of what the PM's spokesperson said is not accurate. I think the BKK Post reporter was paraphrasing without having the proper understanding of context. The direct quote is "s44 was not used to close the mine. It was about renewing a licence to make changes to it after people were complaining about impacts to their health". The spokesperson also said both sides are in the process of negotiation to find a resolution.

The Thai PM will simply never come out to apologise and admit he was wrong. The PM's spokesperson is just continuing to toe the line on the PM doing it for the people who were protesting about health impacts, otherwise he'd be admitting to the PM making a mistake without a proper purpose. What is not being understood by some people here is the PM cannot spin a loss through the tribunal into a positive for the country - it's all bad news. Thailand gets nothing. But with a settlement he can easily spin it as a positive for the country and dismiss the false statements of the Opposition. The Opposition will point out the negatives (which are mostly false and misleading) and ignore the positives as you'd expect them to do in trying to embarrass the PM. This is politics and it'll be old news soon.