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Even after the death of the US President, fighting continued on the border of Thailand and Cambodia on Saturday morning. donald trumpActing as mediator, he announced that he had secured agreement from both countries for a new armistice.
Thai officials said they did not agree to a ceasefire. Cambodia has not commented directly on Trump’s claim, but its defense ministry said Thai jets carried out the airstrikes on Saturday morning.
Thai Foreign Minister Sihasak Phuongketkaew said Saturday that some of Trump’s comments “do not reflect an accurate understanding of the situation.”
He said Trump’s description of the landmine explosion that injured Thai soldiers as a “roadside accident” was wrong and did not reflect Thailand’s position that it was a deliberate act of aggression.
Sihasak said Trump’s willingness to credit “information from sources that deliberately distort the facts” rather than trust Thailand has hurt the sentiments of the Thai people “because we consider ourselves – we are really proud – to be the oldest treaty ally of the United States in the region.”
The latest large-scale fighting began with a clash on December 7 that wounded two Thai soldiers and derailed a ceasefire promoted by Trump that ended five days of fighting in July over long-standing territorial disputes.
The July armistice was brokered malaysia And it was pushed forward by pressure from Trump, who threatened to withhold trade privileges unless Thailand and Cambodia agreed. It was formalized in more detail at a regional meeting in Malaysia in October, which Trump attended.
The number of people displaced by the fighting is above five lakh
More than two dozen people are officially reported dead on both sides of the border in last week’s fighting, while more than half a million people have been displaced.
The Thai military acknowledged that 15 of its soldiers were killed during the fighting, and earlier this week estimated that 165 Cambodian soldiers had been killed. Cambodia has not announced military casualties, but has said at least 11 civilians have been killed and more than six dozen wounded.
Trump after talking to Thai Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul And Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet on Friday announced an agreement to restart the ceasefire.
“They have agreed this evening to effectively stop all shooting and go back to the original peace agreement we made with them and with the help of our great Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim of Malaysia,” Trump wrote in his Truth Social post.
Trump’s claim came after midnight in Bangkok. Thai Prime Minister Anutin said after his conversation with Trump that he had explained Thailand’s reasons for fighting and said peace would depend on Cambodia ceasing its attacks first.
The Thai Foreign Ministry later categorically denied Trump’s claim that a ceasefire had been reached. Anutin’s busy day on Friday also included dissolving Parliament so new elections could be held early next year.
Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet also made no mention of the ceasefire in comments posted Saturday morning.
Leaders spoke to Trump on phone on Friday night
Hun Manet said he spoke by phone with Trump on Friday night and with Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim the night before and thanked both “for their continued efforts to achieve long-term peace between Cambodia and Thailand.”
Hun Manet wrote, “Cambodia is ready to cooperate in any way.”
Anwar later posted on social media that he was urging both sides to implement a ceasefire on Saturday night. The Prime Minister of Cambodia also supported the initiative in a posting online, which included help in monitoring Malaysia and the United States. However, Thai Prime Minister Anutin denied that his country was negotiating the proposal.
Thailand is carrying out air strikes on what it says are purely military targets, while Cambodia is firing thousands of medium-range BM-21 rockets, causing destruction but relatively few casualties.
BM-21 rocket launchers can fire up to 40 rockets at a time with a range of 30–40 kilometers (19–25 mi). These rockets cannot be targeted precisely and fall largely in areas where most people have already been evacuated.
However, the Thai military announced on Saturday that BM-21 rockets had struck a civilian area in Sisaket province, seriously injuring two civilians who had heard warning sirens and were running to a bunker for safety.
Militaries from both sides also reported Thailand’s navy involved in the fighting Saturday morning, with a warship shelling Cambodia’s southwestern province of Koh Kong in the Gulf of Thailand. Each side said the other fired first.
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Peck reported from Bangkok. Sopheng Chainang in Serei Saophon, Cambodia, and Matthew Lee in Washington contributed to this report.