Reuters —Thailand and Cambodia on Saturday reached an agreement to cease hostilities after weeks of intense border fighting, marking the most serious clashes between the two Southeast Asian neighbours in years. The violence had featured fighter jet operations, rocket exchanges, and sustained artillery fire.
In a joint statement, the defence ministers of both countries announced that the ceasefire would take effect at noon local time, with each side maintaining its current troop positions and refraining from further deployments. They warned that any reinforcement of forces could escalate tensions and undermine long-term efforts to resolve the dispute.
The agreement, signed by Thailand’s Defence Minister Natthaphon Narkphanit and Cambodia’s Defence Minister Tea Seiha, brings an end to 20 days of hostilities that left at least 101 people dead and forced more than half a million residents to flee border communities on both sides.
Fighting resumed in early December following the collapse of an earlier truce that had been brokered with the support of U.S. President Donald Trump and Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim.
Thailand and Cambodia have long disputed sovereignty over several undemarcated sections of their 817-kilometre land border, a disagreement that has periodically erupted into armed confrontations for more than a century.
According to Natthaphon, the latest ceasefire will be monitored by an observer mission from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), alongside direct military coordination between both countries. He added that defence ministers and top military commanders from each side would maintain regular communication at the policy level.
Trump Intervention
Tensions had sharply escalated in July when the two countries engaged in five days of fighting along sections of the frontier, resulting in at least 48 deaths and the displacement of about 300,000 people. That round of violence ended after diplomatic intervention by President Trump.
However, the ceasefire unravelled in early December, with both governments accusing each other of actions that reignited hostilities. Malaysia later facilitated renewed engagement, leading to three days of talks at a border checkpoint where the defence ministers finalized the latest agreement on Saturday.Under the terms of the deal, both sides agreed to allow displaced civilians to return to their communities and pledged not to use force against non-combatants. Thailand also committed to releasing 18 Cambodian soldiers detained since the July clashes, provided the ceasefire holds for at least 72 hours.
