Bangkok, Dec 10 (EFE).- US President Donald Trump said he will call the leaders of Thailand and Cambodia due to the escalation of the cross-border armed conflict that violates the Southeast Asian countries’ peace agreement, which the president personally backed.
At a political rally in Pennsylvania on Tuesday, Trump once again claimed he had personally ended eight wars since he returned to power in January.
“I hate to say this one, named Cambodia-Thailand, and it started up today and tomorrow I’ll have to make a phone call,” he said. “Who else could say, ‘I’m going to make a phone call and stop a war of two very powerful countries, Thailand and Cambodia.’ They’re going at it again.”
In October, the prime ministers of both countries signed a peace agreement in Malaysia, backed by Trump, who was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize for his mediation and used tariffs as leverage to pressure the two sides to reach a solution.
The new fighting began on Sunday at several points along the roughly 820-kilometer shared border, and escalated on Monday with air strikes carried out by Thailand.
Both governments blame each other for firing first, and their armed forces continue to fire on military targets from the very north of the border near Laos down to the seaside southern provinces.
The clashes were the deadliest since the five days of fighting in late July, which left almost 50 dead but ended with a ceasefire.
The dispute dates back to the agreement sealed in March 1907 between the then Kingdom of Siam, now Thailand, and France, which occupied the territory now known as Cambodia. The agreement exchanged control of several regions and set a line to define the border. EFE
hp/efs/tw
