Thailand and Cambodia sign truce to halt brutal border war
Bangkok: Thailand and Cambodia agreed on Saturday to halt weeks of fierce border clashes, the worst fighting in years between the South-East Asian countries that has included fighter jets sorties, rockets fired and artillery barrages.
“Both sides agree to maintain current troop deployments without further movement,” their defence ministers said in a joint statement on the ceasefire, to take effect at noon (4pm AEDT).
“Any reinforcement would heighten tensions and negatively affect long-term efforts to resolve the situation,” according to the statement released on social media by Cambodia’s Defence Ministry.
The agreement, signed by Thai Defence Minister Natthaphon Nakrphanit and his Cambodian counterpart Tea Seiha, ended 20 days of fighting that has killed at least 101 people and displaced more than half a million on both sides.
Within hours of the signing, Thailand’s Foreign Ministry protested to Cambodia that a Thai soldier sustained a permanent disability when he stepped on an anti-personnel land mine it charged had been laid by Cambodian forces.
The clashes were re-ignited in early December after a breakdown in a ceasefire that US President Donald Trump had helped broker to halt a previous round of fighting in July.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio welcomed the ceasefire announcement and urged Cambodia and Thailand to fully honour it and the terms of the peace accord reached earlier in Malaysia.
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called the ceasefire “a positive step towards alleviating the suffering of civilians, ending current hostilities, and creating an environment conducive to achieving lasting peace”, his spokesman said.
China’s Foreign Ministry also hailed the agreement in a statement late on Saturday.
“China will play a constructive role in its own way for Cambodia and Thailand to consolidate the ceasefire, resume exchanges, rebuild political trust, achieve turnaround in bilateral relations and uphold regional peace,” the statement read.
Earlier, Cambodia reported that Thailand had hit a site in the country’s north-west with an airstrike, even as the two countries held talks to end their renewed combat. Cambodia’s Defence Ministry said that Thailand deployed F-16 fighter jets to drop four bombs on Saturday morning on a target in Serei Saophoan in the north-western province of Banteay Meanchey.
On Friday, Cambodia said that a similar airstrike dropped 40 bombs on a target in Chok Chey village in the same province. There were no reports of casualties from that raid, but the ministry said that houses and infrastructure in the Chok Chey target area were destroyed.
Thailand’s military confirmed the Friday attack, saying that a joint army-air force operation was conducted to protect Thailand’s Sa Kaeo province, which borders Banteay Meanchey, where the two nations have overlapping territorial claims.
Air Marshal Jackkrit Thammavichai, a spokesperson for Thailand’s air force, said at a press briefing on Friday that the operation took place after days of monitoring by the Thai military determined that civilians had been evacuated from the target area.
Long-standing competing claims of territory along the border are the root of tensions that broke into open combat in late July. Mediation by Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim, backed up by pressure from Trump, led the two sides to agree to a shaky ceasefire after five days of fighting.
Each side describes its military actions as being taken in self-defence and had blamed the other for breaching that ceasefire.
Reuters, AP
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