TYB
Disputed Thai-Cambodian Border Still Tense Despite Ceasefire
Tyler Durden's Photo
by Tyler Durden
Monday, Oct 20, 2025 - 02:45 AM
Fighting between Thailand and Cambodia stopped after five days of clashes in July that left dozens dead, according to Nikkei Asia.
ASEAN hopes to formalize a broader ceasefire at its Oct. 26 summit in Kuala Lumpur, to be witnessed by U.S. President Donald Trump. But tensions along the border remain unresolved.
In Thailand’s Sa Kaeo province, hundreds of Cambodians ignored an order to leave Ban Nong Ya Kaeo and Ban Nong Chan — two contested villages where Thai forces demolished Cambodian checkpoints in July. The sites are now fenced with razor wire and monitored by floodlights and CCTV, but the Thai military has not enforced the eviction. “That is the governor’s deadline, but we have our own,” a senior Thai army officer told Nikkei Asia.
The border dispute traces back more than a century. The “Siamese-Cambodian border was [partly] demarcated based on the watershed as indicated in a map sketched in 1904 by the supposed ‘joint committee’ consisting of Siamese and French surveyors,” Thai historian Charnvit Kasetsiri wrote in Preah Vihear. The authors noted that “Siam did not protest the map. In fact, during King Vajiravudh's reign (1910–1926), a French map was even reproduced as the official map of Siam.”
Cambodia later brought the matter before the International Court of Justice in the 1960s over the temple known as Khao Phra Viharn in Thailand and Prasat Preah Vihear in Cambodia. The ruling favored Phnom Penh, leaving Bangkok wary of international arbitration ever since.