BANGKOK, Dec 13: Thailand's leader vowed on Saturday to keep fighting on the disputed border with Cambodia as fighter jets struck targets hours after U.S. President Donald Trump said he had brokered a new ceasefire.
Caretaker Thai Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul said the Southeast Asian nation would "continue to perform military actions until we feel no more harm and threats to our land and people".
Trump, who brokered a ceasefire in the long-running border dispute in October, spoke to Anutin and Cambodian premier Hun Manet on Friday and said they had agreed to "cease all shooting".
Advertisement · Scroll to continue Neither mentioned any agreement in statements after their calls with Trump, and Anutin said there was no ceasefire.
"I want to make it clear. Our actions this morning already spoke," Anutin posted on Facebook.
The White House did not respond to a request for comment on the continued fighting.
Hun Manet, in a statement on Saturday on Facebook, said he welcomed a proposal by Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim, who has been a mediator in peace talks, to cease hostilities from Saturday evening.
Anwar, chair of the 10-nation ASEAN grouping, in a Facebook post urged both sides to "refrain from any further military actions including the use of force or forward movement of armed units" starting at 1500 GMT.
He said an ASEAN observer team led by the Malaysian chief of defence forces would be deployed to the border and the U.S. government would provide satellite monitoring capabilities.
Anutin said "there has been no agreement on halting anything", when asked by reporters about the Malaysian proposal.
Thailand's foreign minister told a press conference the country would cooperate with the observer team, but any ceasefire would need to be preceded by talks.
"We can't just announce a ceasefire while the fighting is going on," he said.
This map shows locations of military clashes along the disputed border between Thailand and Cambodia.
Cambodia and Thailand have been exchanging heavy-weapons fire at multiple points along the 817-km (508-mile) border since Monday, in some of the heaviest fighting since a five-day clash in July. Trump halted that fighting, the worst in recent memory, with calls to both leaders.
Trump, who has repeatedly said he deserves the Nobel Peace Prize, has been keen to intervene again to rescue the truce.
Thailand suspended it last month after a Thai soldier was maimed by a landmine, one of many that Bangkok says were newly laid by Cambodia.
Meanwhile, Cambodia shut its border crossings with Thailand on Saturday, after Bangkok denied US President Donald Trump's claim that a truce had been agreed to end days of deadly fighting.
Violence between the Southeast Asian neighbours, which stems from a long-running dispute over the colonial-era demarcation of their 800-kilometre (500-mile) border, has displaced around half a million people on both sides.
At least 25 people have died this week, including four Thai soldiers the defence ministry said were killed in the border area on Saturday.
"REUTERS, AFP
