Tokyo – Thailand’s fugitive former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra said Tuesday he had no immediate plan to return to his country.

“I don’t think I would go back (to Thailand) if I were to be part of the problem,” Thaksin, who arrived Monday for a week-long stay, told a news conference in Tokyo.

Thaksin, who was premier from 2001 until he was toppled in a 2006 coup, has lived abroad since 2008 to avoid a two-year prison sentence for abuse of power in Thailand.

He is the de facto leader of the Pheu Thai Party, which won the general election in early July. His sister Yingluck Shinawatra was chosen to become Thailand’s first female prime minister.

Read more: The Nation