Thailand and Cambodia agree ceasefire to end border fighting

Cambodian defence minister Tea Seiha, left, and Thai counterpart Natthaphon Narkphanit after signing the deal (AKP/AP)

Thailand and Cambodia have signed a ceasefire agreement to end weeks of armed combat along their border over competing claims to territory.

In addition to ending the fighting, the agreement calls for no further military movements by either side and no violations of either side’s airspace for military purposes.

Only Thailand has employed air strikes in the fighting, hitting sites in Cambodia as recently as Saturday morning, according to Cambodia’s defence ministry.

Another major clause of the deal calls for Thailand – “after the ceasefire has been fully maintained 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.

Cambodian defence minister Tea Seiha, left, and Thai counterpart Natthaphon Narkphanit signed the deal on Saturday (AKP/AP)

The agreement was signed by the two countries’ defence ministers, Cambodia’s Tea Seiha and Thailand’s Nattaphon Narkphanit, at a checkpoint on their border on Saturday after lower-level talks by military officials for three days as part of the already-established General Border Committee.

The agreement declares the two sides are committed to an earlier ceasefire that ended five days of fighting in July and follow-up agreements, and includes commitments to 16 de-escalation measures.

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 Mr Trump attended.

Despite those deals, the two countries carried on a bitter propaganda war and minor cross-border violence continued, escalating in early December to widespread heavy fighting.

The Thai military fired artillery towards Cambodia on Friday (Wason Wanichakorn/AP)

Thailand has lost 26 soldiers and one civilian as a direct result of the combat since December 7, according to officials. Thailand has also reported 44 civilian deaths from collateral effects of the situation.

Cambodia has not issued an official figure on military casualties, but it says 30 civilians have been killed and 90 injured. Hundreds of thousands of people have been evacuated from affected areas on both sides of the border.

Each side blamed the other for initiating the fighting and claimed to be acting in self-defence.

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 nine incidents this year by what they said were newly planted Cambodian mines. Cambodia says the mines were left over from decades of civil war that ended in the late 1990s.

Another clause of the deal says the two sides “agree to refrain from disseminating false information or fake news”.

The agreement also says previously established measures to demarcate the border will be resumed and the two sides also agree to co-operate on an effort to suppress transnational crimes.

That is primarily a reference to online scams perpetrated by organised crime that have bilked victims around the world of billions each year. Cambodia is a centre for such criminal enterprises.