PHNOM PENH (Realist English). Thailand and Cambodia reached a ceasefire agreement on Saturday, bringing to a halt weeks of intense border clashes that marked the worst fighting between the two neighbors in years.
Under the deal, which took effect at noon local time, both sides committed to maintaining current troop deployments and refraining from any further movement. “Any reinforcement would heighten tensions and negatively affect long-term efforts to resolve the situation,” the two defense ministers said in a joint statement released by Cambodia’s Defense Ministry.
The agreement was signed by Thai Defense Minister Natthaphon Narkphanit and his Cambodian counterpart Tea Seiha, ending 20 days of fighting that left at least 101 people dead and forced more than 500,000 civilians to flee border areas on both sides.
The clashes resumed in early December after the collapse of a previous truce brokered earlier this year with the involvement of US President Donald Trump and Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim. Since then, fighting expanded from forested regions near Laos to coastal provinces along the Gulf of Thailand, involving fighter jets, rocket fire and artillery barrages.
The ceasefire will be overseen by an observer mission from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, alongside direct military-to-military coordination. Natthaphon said senior defense officials and armed forces chiefs from both countries would remain in direct contact to prevent renewed escalation.
The breakthrough followed a special meeting of Southeast Asian foreign ministers in Kuala Lumpur earlier this week and three days of talks at a border checkpoint, culminating in Saturday’s meeting between the two defense chiefs.
In addition to halting hostilities, the ministers agreed to facilitate the return of displaced civilians and pledged that neither side would use force against non-combatants. Thailand also committed to releasing 18 Cambodian soldiers captured during the July clashes, provided the ceasefire holds for at least 72 hours.
Thailand and Cambodia have disputed sovereignty over sections of their 817-kilometer land border for more than a century, with tensions periodically erupting into armed confrontations. While the latest agreement has stopped the immediate violence, diplomats caution that the underlying territorial dispute remains unresolved.