Wednesday, February 15, 2012

Border demarcation marks ‘new chapter’

Wednesday, 15 February 2012
Vong Sokheng
The Phnom Penh Post

Cambodia and Thailand agreed to sideline domestic politics and begin actually mapping border markers as the two countries seek to make progress demarcating their contested border at the latest meeting of the Joint Border Committee yesterday.

Var Kimhong, Cambodia’s chief border negotiator, said Thailand would no longer require that border surveys be approved by its National Assembly, marking a “new chapter” in the neighbours’ demarcation process, after the meeting in Bangkok yesterday.

“There was a good environment at the meeting from which Thai political issues will no longer be an obstacle and the Cambodian JBC will be able to carry out its work on the actual land,” he said.


The two sides had agreed to employ highly accurate orthophoto mapping technology in the process of border demarcation, as experts from both countries spent two months establishing 23 survey markers from Poipet in Banteay Meanchey to Ta Moan temple.

A Thai government source who declined to be named said yesterday that four permanent checkpoints would also be established along the border.

Cambodia and Thailand have never fully demarcated their 805-kilometre shared border, and the process has stalled since a dispute over the area surrounding the Preah Vihear temple flared when Cambodia was awarded World Heritage recognition for the site in 2008.

Demarcation talks at a meeting of the JBC last April failed to yield any progress on the issue during a low period of Cambodian and Thai relations.

Those negotiations came on the heels of fierce, bloody clashes near disputed territory surrounding the Preah Vihear temple in February and April that left at least 28 people dead and displaced thousands of villagers.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

HOPE, Khmer is not taken advantage of by the Thai thief. Hope Siam doesn't has any new hidden agenda behind this small progress.

My question is why did they need parliament votes with any agreement with us before , their law Article 190 required ? Why now they can violate this Article 190 ? It seem very suspicious. Can you guy who is good with this kind of they explain to me ? Thanks


OH please PM Hun Sen agrees ONLY to hire French experts NOT the Swiss or Japanese. Japanese already betrayed us in WW II by taken 3 of our provinces and hand it over to Thailand. I don't trust Japanese or American or Swiss.