Cambodia and Thailand continue border talks

The foreign ministers of Cambodia and Thailand are scheduled to meet Wednesday in Cambodia’s Siem Riep, aimed at resolving their border dispute. Officials of the two nieghbours made it clear they would make it a priority to demarcate territory around the 11th century temple as soon as it was cleared of landmines. The Cambodain -Thai Joint Boundary Commission or JBC ended a two-day meeting on Tuesday, to draw up an agenda for discussions between their foreign ministers on Wednesday. The talks are aimed at ending a four month military stand-off, which escalated into a shootout near Preah Vihear temple, in mid October killing one Thai and three Cambodians. The Cambodian-Thai border has never been fully demarcated, in part because it is littered with landmines left over from decades of war in Cambodia. Officials need to be very careful in their survey operation to find boundary posts in accordance with an agreement between the two countries in 2000. Thai officials from the Royal Thai Survey Department, which is responsible for working with Cambodian officials to conduct the survey, said the border demarcation was a painstaking process. "Cambodian and Thai officials use the same maps in the joint operation to demarcate the border, but we sometimes have different opinions when we interpret maps and the treaty," Royal Thai Survey Deptartmenet official Col. Chakorn Boonpakdee said. Thailand and Cambodia share an almost 800 kilometre land border 100 years ago, Thailand and France placed 73 markers along the border from Thailand’s Si Sa Ket to Trad. However, the marker were located far apart and almost half were destroyed or removed. As a result, the two countries have not been able to specify the border line at many point. In 2006, Cambodia and Thailand started a new survey in line with the Siam- France Treaty of 1904 . According to the agreement between Thailand and Cambodia, the joint survey began in Sa Kaew and would later move north to other provinces including Si Sa Ket, where this year’s border dispute near Preah Vihear temple erupted. "Our survey operation doesn’t aim to benefit any side but we do it for clear border demarcation and justice of the two sides," Royal Thai Survey Deptartmant official Col. Pratya Nakhonkao said. The joint survey so far had found 48 of the 73 century old boundary posts and now the survey was under way in Trat.