Thailand, Cambodia sign new truce pact to end border conflict
Agreement also calls on both sides to adhere to international agreements against deploying land mines
Thailand and Cambodia signed a ceasefire agreement on Saturday to end weeks of fighting along their border over competing territorial claims.
The agreement took effect at noon (10.30 am IST) and calls for a halt in military movements and airspace violations for military purposes.
According to the Cambodian Defence Ministry, only Thailand has carried out airstrikes, hitting sites in Cambodia as recently as Saturday morning.
The agreement was signed by Cambodia’s Defence Minister Tea Seiha and his Thailand counterpart Nattaphon Narkphanit at a border checkpoint. It followed three-day lower-level talks by military officials.
The pact declares that the sides are committed to an earlier ceasefire that ended five days of fighting in July and follow-up agreements.
The original July ceasefire was brokered by Malaysia and pushed through by pressure from US President Donald Trump, who threatened to withhold trade privileges unless Thailand and Cambodia agreed. It was formalised in more detail in October at a regional meeting in Malaysia that Trump attended.
The Saturday deal also calls for Thailand, after the ceasefire has held for 72 hours, to repatriate 18 Cambodian soldiers it has held as prisoners since earlier fighting in July. Their release has been a major demand of the Cambodian side.
The agreement also calls on both sides to adhere to international agreements against deploying land mines, a major concern of Thailand. Thai soldiers along the border have been wounded in at least 10 incidents this year by what Thailand says were newly planted Cambodian mines. Cambodia says the mines were left over from decades of civil war that ended in the late 1990s.
Within hours of signing the ceasefire, Thailand’s Foreign Ministry protested to Cambodia that a Thai soldier sustained a permanent disability when he stepped on an anti-personnel land mine, which it charged had been laid by the Cambodian forces.
Thailand’s Foreign Ministry has noted that the new agreement “includes key provisions on joint humanitarian demining operations to ensure the safety of military personnel and civilians in the border areas as soon as possible.”
Another clause says the two sides “agree to refrain from disseminating false information or fake news.” The sides also agreed to cooperate in suppressing transnational crimes.
According to the officials, Thailand has lost 26 soldiers and one civilian since December 7. Cambodia says 30 civilians have been killed and 90 injured in the conflict
