Thailand sets demands ahead of four days of Cambodia peace talks

[BANGKOK] The Thai military said ceasefire talks with Cambodia, set to begin on Wednesday (Dec 24), are expected to conclude with a meeting of the countries’ defence ministers on Dec 27, as the two sides seek to end weeks of deadly clashes.

The talks are set to start at 4 pm Bangkok time (5 pm Singapore time) in Thailand’s Chanthaburi province, which borders Cambodia.

Thailand’s Ministry of Defense outlined several demands to be discussed ahead of the bilateral meeting of the General Border Committee on Saturday.

If secretariat-level discussions fail to reach agreement on key technical frameworks such as troop deployments, the Thai side won’t proceed with the GBC meeting or sign any agreement on Dec 27, the defence ministry said.

The discussions will mark the first bilateral dialogue since clashes erupted on Dec 7, with at least 44 people killed and more than half a million civilians displaced on both sides of their 800-km border.

Five days of clashes in July ended with an initial ceasefire agreement mediated by Malaysia and US President Donald Trump.

Fighting continued in parts of Thailand’s eastern and northeastern provinces bordering Cambodia as both sides sought to claim territory, a Thai defence ministry spokesman said at a briefing on Wednesday. One soldier was killed in clashes on Tuesday, bringing the military death toll to 22, he said.

Thai civilian deaths from the latest fighting meanwhile rose to 41, and about 150,000 people have been displaced to shelters, he said.

The issues the Thai military plans to raise in the talks are:

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• The use of anti-personnel landmines
• The use of historical sites as military positions
• The firing of heavy weapons from civilian communities
• The use of civilian buildings as military positions or weapons storage facilities

Both sides have denied targeting civilians, claiming they are only attacking military targets.

The Cambodian Mine Action and Victim Assistance Authority has separately condemned what it called Thailand’s military aggression and campaign of misinformation, the Khmer Times reported.

Cambodia asked that the meetings be held in Kuala Lumpur instead, but Thailand rejected the request, Thai defence spokesman Surasant Kongsiri told Bloomberg News earlier.

The two sides normally take turns hosting the bilateral meetings, and the last General Border Committee meeting was held in September, in Cambodia’s Koh Kong province. BLOOMBERG