Panu Wongcha-um
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.
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.
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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