PHNEM PENG: Cambodia accused Thailand on Friday of intensifying its bombardment of disputed border areas, even as officials from the two countries attend a multi-day meeting aimed at negotiating an end to deadly clashes.
The neighbors’ long-standing border conflict reignited this month, shattering an earlier truce and killing more than 40 people, according to official counts. Around a million people have also been displaced.
Cambodian and Thai officials were in their third day of talks at a border checkpoint on Friday, with defense ministers from both countries scheduled to meet on Saturday.
However, Cambodia’s defense ministry said Thailand’s military carried out a heavy bombardment of disputed border areas in Banteay Meanchey province Friday morning.
“From 6:08 am to 7:15 am, the Thai military deployed F-16 fighter jets to drop as many as 40 bombs, to intensify its bombardment in the area of Chok Chey village,” it said in a statement.
Thai media said Friday that Cambodian forces had launched heavy attacks overnight along the border in Sa Kaeo province, where several homes were damaged by shelling.
The two countries blame each other for instigating the fresh fighting, which has spread to nearly every province along their border.
Both countries also claim to have acted in self-defense and accuse the other of attacking civilians.
The United States, China and Malaysia brokered a truce to end five days of deadly clashes in July, but the ceasefire was short-lived.
Earlier Friday, Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet said on Facebook that he had spoken by phone with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and the two discussed “ways to secure a ceasefire along the Cambodia-Thailand border.”
The conflict stems from a territorial dispute over the colonial-era demarcation of their 800-kilometer (500-mile) frontier and a collection of temple ruins situated there.
Cambodia says Thailand escalated strikes during border talks
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Cambodia says Thailand escalated strikes during border talks
- Cambodia accused Thailand on Friday of intensifying its bombardment of disputed border areas
Russian minister visits Cuba as Trump ramps up pressure on Havana
- The Russian embassy in Havana said the minister would “hold a series of bilateral meetings” while in Cuba
HAVANA: Russia’s interior minister began a visit to ally Cuba on Tuesday, a show of solidarity after US President Donald Trump warned that the island’s longtime communist government “is ready to fall.”
Trump this month warned Havana to “make a deal,” the nature of which he did not divulge, or pay a price similar to Venezuela, whose leader Nicolas Maduro was ousted by US forces in a January 3 bombing raid that killed dozens of people.
Venezuela was a key ally of Cuba and a critical supplier of oil and money, which Trump has vowed to cut off.
“We in Russia regard this as an act of unprovoked armed aggression against Venezuela,” Russia’s Interior Minister Vladimir Kolokoltsev told Russian state TV Rossiya-1 of the US actions after landing in Cuba.
“This act cannot be justified in any way and once again proves the need to increase vigilance and consolidate all efforts to counter external factors,” he added.
The Russian embassy in Havana said the minister would “hold a series of bilateral meetings” while in Cuba.
Russia and Cuba, both under Western sanctions, have intensified their relations since 2022, with an isolated Moscow seeking new friends and trading partners since its invasion of Ukraine.
Cuba needs all the help it can get as it grapples with its worst economic crisis in decades and now added pressure from Washington.
Trump has warned that acting President Delcy Rodriguez will pay “a very big price” if she does not toe Washington’s line — specifically on access to Venezuela’s oil and loosening ties with US foes Cuba, Russia, China and Iran.
On Tuesday, Russia’s ambassador to Havana, Victor Koronelli, wrote on X that Kolokoltsev was in Cuba “to strengthen bilateral cooperation and the fight against crime.”
The US chief of mission in Cuba, Mike Hammer, meanwhile, met the head of the US Southern Command in Miami on Tuesday “to discuss the situation in Cuba and the Caribbean,” the embassy said on X.
The command is responsible for American forces operating in Central and South America that have carried out seizures of tankers transporting Venezuelan oil and strikes on alleged drug-trafficking boats.
- Soldiers killed -
Cuba has been a thorn in the side of the United States since the revolution that swept communist Fidel Castro to power in 1959.
Havana and Moscow were close communist allies during the Cold War, but that cooperation was abruptly halted in 1991 with the dissolution of the Soviet bloc.
The deployment of Soviet nuclear missile sites on the island triggered the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, when Washington and Moscow came close to war.
During his first presidential term, Trump walked back a detente with Cuba launched by his predecessor Barack Obama.
Thirty-two Cuban soldiers, some of them assigned to Maduro’s security detail, were killed in the US strikes that saw the Venezuelan strongman whisked away in cuffs to stand trial in New York.
Kolokoltsev attended a memorial for the fallen men on Tuesday.
