PHNOM PENH – Thailand and Cambodia agreed to a ceasefire on
Thursday after a week of clashes that killed at least 15 people, wounded scores
and sent more than 60,000 into evacuation shelters in Southeast Asia's deadliest
border dispute in years.
The agreement caps seven days of sporadic clashes with guns, heavy artillery
and small-rocket fire that fanned nationalist passions in both countries,
threatened to overshadow elections in Thailand and reinforced doubts over
Southeast Asia's ambitions to form an E.U.-style community by 2015.
Cambodia's Defense Ministry said both sides agreed to keep troops in the
area, hold regular meetings between field commanders and leave their
long-festering territorial disputes to a Thai-Cambodian Joint Commission on
Demarcation for Land Boundary set up a decade ago.
They also agreed to open a border checkpoint near two disputed 12th-century
Hindu temples at the heart of the fighting, although it was unclear when
villagers would be allowed back to their remote, ravaged towns.
"We will abide by the ceasefire from now on and local commanders will meet
regularly to avoid misunderstanding," Cambodian government spokesman Phay Siphan
said.
Thai government spokesman Panitan Wattanayagorn said a decision on sending
villagers home would be made soon.
"We hope that would ease tension and that both sides will respect this
initial agreement," he said. "On our side of the border, the regional commander
is expressing confidence peace will hold."
Cambodian Colonel Suos Sothea said Cambodia was in control of the Ta Moan and
Ta Krabey temples around which rival troops clashed repeatedly. "The situation
is now quiet," he said. "The temples are completely controlled by Cambodia."
Thai military and government officials declined to acknowledge Cambodian
control of the two stone-walled temples.
Thailand has insisted the ruins reside in its Surin province according to a
1947 map. Cambodia says they are in its Oddar Meanchey province.
Sovereignty over the ancient temples -- Preah Vihear, Ta Moan and Ta Krabey
-- and the jungle of the Dangrek Mountains surrounding them has been in dispute
since the withdrawal of the French from Cambodia in the 1950s.
Earlier, Thailand reinforced the area with tanks following a night of
shelling that killed a Thai soldier and wounded seven. Eight Thai tanks had
rumbled through deserted villages toward the front lines where troops on both
sides were sealed off by heavily guarded roadblocks, about 7 km (4.3 miles)
away.
The fighting killed at least eight Cambodian and six Thai soldiers, and one
Thai civilian. Reuters
