BANGKOK -- Thailand told Myanmar's military junta on Tuesday to stop trading insults and sit down for talks to resolve border tensions that have battered bilateral relations between the two countries.

Defense Minister Chavalit Yongchaiyudh said he was upset by recent articles in Myanmar's ***New Light of Myanmar*** English-language newspaper, seen as a mouthpiece for the junta, which criticized former Thai kings.

"They have been like this (criticizing former Thai kings) for so long, we need to react, we can't let it go like this," Chavalit told reporters before a weekly cabinet meeting.

"We are always ready to talk. We are waiting for them to be ready," he said.

The minister is meeting Thai military commanders on Tuesday to discuss how to react to a barrage of criticism from Myanmar officials and media, a Defense Ministry spokesman told Reuters.

Myanmar officials and newspapers have been calling Thailand "Yodaya" -- a reference to a former Thai kingdom centered on the city of Ayutthaya which was sacked by an invading army from Myanmar in 1767. Daily articles in newspapers have attacked the Thais and their monarchy -- a very grave insult in Thailand.

Tempers flared between the two countries last month after Myanmar accused Thailand of aiding the Shan state army, an ethnic minority rebel group fighting the junta and its allies in the United WA state army, an ethnic militia allied to Yangon which Thailand blames for most drug production in the Golden Triangle.

Thailand has repeatedly denied aiding Shan and Karen guerrillas fighting the Myanmar junta. But diplomats say many in the Thai military view the Shan as an essential counterbalance in the Golden Triangle region to the WA.

--- Thorny Problem --- The row has presented Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra with a thorny foreign policy problem.

Thaksin is keen to improve relations with Myanmar, and has so far not responded to the series of verbal attacks from the junta. But he has also pledged to crack down on drugs, and vowed to capture notorious WA druglord Wei Hseuh-kang "dead or alive".

Thai newspapers said the border tensions sparked a split between the government and military, with Thaksin trying to placate the junta while the military favored a firmer line.

Thailand has been pushing for talks with Myanmar for weeks, but has so far been rebuffed.

Chavalit said exchanging insults would help nobody.

"It will escalate to be out of control if we both leave it like this. I don't want to give the impression I am begging them, but I don't want this deadlock to continue," he said.

The ethnic minority WA army, former rebels who signed a peace deal with the Myanmar government in 1989, is accused by Thailand of producing much of the heroin reaching the west and most of the methamphetamine pills flooding Thailand each year.

Myanmar says the wa are committed to eradicating drugs and says the Shan guerrillas are the main narcotics traffickers.

Thai Deputy Defense Minister Yuthasak Sasiprapha said on Tuesday the country did not back the Shan rebels but did allow humanitarian assistance to those affected by the border fighting.

"It is a humanitarian matter. No matter what their nationalities are -- Myanmar, Shan or Thai -- we allow those who are running away from the fighting to stay, and then we push them out when the battle ceases," he said. Bbut we will not allow any side to use even a single square inch of our soil for fighting."