BEIJING, Dec 23 (Reuters) – The top priority for Thailand and Cambodia is to agree to a ceasefire and stop fighting as soon as possible resume dialogue, and resolve their border disputes peacefully, a special Chinese envoy to the region said.
For three weeks, Thailand and Cambodia have engaged in daily exchanges of rockets and artillery along their 817 km (508 miles) land border, after a truce first brokered by Malaysia as ASEAN chair and U.S. President Donald Trump collapsed.
China has since joined the top diplomats of the 11-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations in urging both countries to exercise restraint and take steps to halt fighting.
China supports ASEAN’s mediation efforts and is willing to once again create conditions and provide a platform for dialogue and negotiations between the two sides, the Chinese foreign ministry said on Tuesday, citing its Special Envoy for Asian Affairs Deng Xijun.
Deng recently travelled to the two countries, meeting with their respective prime ministers and other senior government officials, as part of China’s shuttle diplomacy.
Thailand and Cambodia have agreed to hold a meeting on Wednesday of defence officials aimed at resuming the ceasefire, a move welcomed by ASEAN.
China, which calls itself a “friend” and “close neighbour” to both Cambodia and Thailand, has been seeking to facilitate mediation. It says it has been promoting a resolution to the conflict “in its own way”, without referring to the Trump ceasefire deal.
Trump claimed that the Thai-Cambodian conflict was one of the eight wars that he had stopped around the world, even as the fighting broke out again.
“In a region marked by complex historical sensitivities, few actors can claim to have the trust and willingness necessary to sustain mediation efforts as China, whose balanced and constructive approach provides a stable impetus for de-escalation of the tensions, as it did in helping broker reconciliation between Iran and Saudi Arabia last year,” state-run China Daily wrote in an editorial on Monday.
(Reporting by Ryan Woo; Editing by Himani Sarkar and Michael Perry)
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