Thailand offers border talks

Thailand said it is ready for bilateral border negotiations with Cambodia after months of insisting its internal process was not finished. (phnompenhpost.com) Thai Foreign Minister Sihasak Phuangketkeow said Bangkok is “not afraid of negotiations” and wants a mutually convenient date, according to reporting published on April 17. A week earlier, on April 12, he had said Thailand was not ready to attend Joint Boundary Commission talks scheduled for April 17-25 because changes to the Thai delegation still needed domestic approval. (phnompenhpost.com) (bangkokpost.com) Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet had pushed the other way for most of the past year. On June 2, 2025, he said Cambodia wanted to resolve four sensitive areas — Mom Bei, Ta Moan Thom, Ta Moan Tauch and Ta Krabei — through the International Court of Justice, and would file even without Thai consent if needed. (information.gov.kh) That made this week’s exchange notable: Phnom Penh publicly emphasized bilateral talks again, and Bangkok publicly answered that it was willing to negotiate. AFP reported on April 12 that Hun Manet said Cambodia was “fully ready” for talks “quickly and with sincerity,” even as Thailand said it still had procedures to complete. (nst.com.my) The dispute is not about a single crossing point. Thailand and Cambodia have argued for decades over parts of their 800-kilometre border, including temple zones and nearby high ground that were never fully demarcated after the French colonial period. (nst.com.my) (icj-cij.org) The International Court of Justice already settled one core question in 1962, ruling that the Temple of Preah Vihear is on Cambodian territory and that Thailand had to withdraw forces stationed there. The court said the frontier map used in the case had been accepted by Thailand. (icj-cij.org) But the court ruling did not end every argument along the frontier, and the issue turned violent again last year. AFP reported that clashes in July and December 2025 killed dozens of people and displaced more than a million, before the two governments signed a ceasefire in late December that allowed border talks to resume. (nst.com.my) Cambodian outlets have put the humanitarian toll lower but still severe, reporting more than 100 civilian casualties and over 640,000 people forced from their homes, with more than 34,000 still displaced as of April 17. Those competing figures reflect the same basic reality: the border file is now tied to ceasefire enforcement, displaced civilians and control of contested ground. (phnompenhpost.com) (nst.com.my) The mechanism both sides keep referring to is the Joint Boundary Commission, a bilateral body of officials and technical experts that handles maps, archives and line-by-line demarcation. Sihasak said the Thai chair should be a technical specialist, not necessarily the foreign minister, because the work centers on international law and boundary matters. (bangkokpost.com) Sihasak, a career diplomat appointed foreign minister on September 19, 2025, said he may discuss the issue with Cambodia’s foreign minister on the sidelines of the Asean leaders’ summit in early May. After a year of arguments over whether the dispute belonged in The Hague or at the negotiating table, both governments are now publicly talking about the table again. (mfa.go.th) (bangkokpost.com)