Bangkok, Dec 12 (EFE). Thailand’s foreign office said Friday that it “is coordinating” a phone call with United States President Donald Trump to address the renewed border clashes with Cambodia, after the US leader said he would speak with the heads of government of both countries to discuss the escalating conflict.
“We are coordinating the time. It has not happened,” a spokesperson for the Thai Foreign Ministry said when asked if Trump had already contacted Bangkok.
Trump said Tuesday, during a political event in Pennsylvania, US, that he intended to call the leaders of Thailand and Cambodia, Anutin Charnvirakul and Huh Manet, respectively, following the surge in military activity across several points of their roughly 820-kilometer shared border.
“If he (Trump) were to call me, in my capacity as head of government, I would explain and clarify how the situation has evolved into what we are seeing now. He would need to listen carefully to the information directly from me,” Anutin told reporters Thursday.
A new wave of cross border attacks erupted Sunday along the frontier between Thailand and Cambodia, killing at least 24 and violating the Trump-brokered peace agreement in October, as well as a previous ceasefire negotiated with US mediation, both in Malaysia.
Such attempts to secure peace followed five days of hostilities in July that left about 50 people dead.
Trump has repeatedly claimed credit for halting, albeit briefly, the violence at the time. Speaking again from Pennsylvania, he said pacifying the conflict between Bangkok and Phnom Penh forms part of the list of eight wars he claims to have ended since returning to power in January.
The two Asian nations have long disputed sovereignty over several territories along their shared border, drawn by France in 1907 when Cambodia was part of French Indochina. EFE
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