After ordering all its citizens to leave. China invites dialogue
Thailand closed the entire border with Cambodia after having ordered all its citizens to leave. The BBC reports it.
“A stroke of Cambodian artillery hit a house, a civilian died and there are three wounded, including a five -year -old boy,” said the office of the Thai Prime Minister in a press release.
Thai Jet F-16 have carried out air attacks on a couple of military objectives in Cambodia said the Thai army. The two countries collide on a disputed border. Six jets started from the province of Ubon Ratchathani and hit two “Cambodian military goals on the ground”, according to the vice spokesperson for the Thai army Ritcha Suksuwanon.
Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet asked the United Nations Security Council to convene an “urgent meeting”. “Considering the recent very serious attacks by Thailand, who have threatened peace and stability in the region, I strongly ask you to convene an urgent meeting of the Security Council”, wrote Hun Manet in a letter addressed to the President in office for the United Nations Security Council Asim Iftikhar Ahmad. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs Cambodian has accused Thailand of having launched “a military aggression not caused”.
China has urged its citizens in Cambodia to avoid the areas close to the border with Thailand, while the armed forces of the two countries have exchanged firearms shots in a new and dangerous escalation linked to the disputes never resolved by a territorial nature. “The Chinese Embassy in Cambodia advises Chinese citizens to carefully monitor the situation of local security, to remain vigilant, to adopt greater precautions and to guarantee their personal security”, has warned diplomatic representation in an online post.
China said “profoundly worried by current developments” with the fatal clashes between military on the border between Cambodia and Thailand, as part of the surge of tensions between the two countries linked to the unresolved territorial disputes, inviting the parties “to accommodate the differences through dialogue and consultations”. The hope, commented on the spokesman for the Foreign Ministry of Guo Jiakun in daily briefing, “is the appropriate management” of the crisis in which Beijing will keep “a fair and impartial position”.
New clashes broke out this morning on the border between the Cambodian and Thai armies, they declared both sides by accusing each other that of having opened fire first. The accident occurred near ancient temples in the northeastern province of Surin in Thailand and in the northwestern province of Oddar Me also in Cambodia. “The Cambodian forces opened fire to the eastern side of the temple of Prasat Ta Muen Thom, about 200 meters from the Thai base,” said Thailand’s army in a statement accusing the Cambodia of having used a drone on the disputed site. “The Thai army has violated the territorial integrity of Cambodia by launching an attack reinforced against the Cambodian forces located there,” said the Cambodian Ministry of Defense. “In response, the Cambodian armed forces exercised their legitimate right to self -defense, in full compliance with international law, to reject the Thai incursion,” he continued. The two kingdoms of Southeast Asia have long been in conflict on the demarcation of the common border, defined in the time of French Indochina, but the current crisis is the most serious of the last fifteen years. The death of a Khmer soldier following a nightfall clash at the end of May in another disputed area of the border has triggered a bickering between Bangkok and Phnom Penh who drastically reduced their economic and diplomatic ties. Cambodia has downgraded the diplomatic relationships with its close to the “lowest level”. Bangkok recalled his ambassador from Phnom Penh and expelled the Cambodian ambassador after a Thai soldier had lost his leg after trampling a minar on the border. The most recent episode of violence linked to the border dates back to the clashes that broke out near the temple of Preah Vihear between 2008 and 2011, which caused at least 28 deaths and forced tens of thousands of residents to the evacuation.
