Thailand and Cambodia are at war again. Trump's Peace Plan is forgotten...

Thai Prime Minister Charnvirakun (left) and Cambodia’s Prime Minister Hun Manet

Thai F-16s hit Cambodia in blow to Trump-backed Peace Plan, Bloomberg writes.

Thailand and Cambodia have again accused each other of firing first in a fresh round of fighting along their restive border, weeks after the two countries signed an agreement, which President Trump helped mediate, making a commitment to peace in their longstanding dispute.

Thailand launched air strikes on Cambodian military sites Monday after a deadly border skirmish, the most dramatic escalation in months that endangers a peace deal demanded by President Donald Trump.

The Thai military said it carried out ground and F-16 air operations after Cambodian forces opened fire at multiple border locations using small arms, machine guns, mortars and artillery, which killed at least one Thai soldier and injured about a dozen. Four civilians were killed in Thai attacks, Cambodia’s information ministry said.

Both sides accused each other of cross-border fire over the weekend, rekindling a conflict that has flared occasionally for decades and left dozens dead during a brief but severe clash earlier this year.

The latest escalation threatens to collapse a peace accord brokered by the US and Malaysia, and risks derailing US-Thailand trade negotiations that would undermine Thai Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul’s economic priorities ahead of upcoming elections.

“Thailand does not seek violence and we can firmly say we are never the instigator. But we will not allow our sovereignty to be violated,” Anutin said Monday. Later, when asked by reporters whether he has spoken with Trump since the latest clashes, he said: “No need. This is a matter between Thailand and its neighbor.”

A key reason behind Thailand’s forceful response, according to the army’s Winthai, was intelligence suggesting Cambodian forces had deployed additional troops and long-range weapons capable of threatening a Thai commercial airport and areas near a hospital. Thailand also accused Cambodia of targeting the country’s non-military areas near the border.

The Cambodian defense ministry denied Thailand’s claims and described actions by the Thai army over the past few days as “provocative.” It confirmed Monday that the Thai military struck its forces at multiple locations in Preah Vihear province. The country’s Minister of Information separately accused Thailand of “widespread dissemination of false and fabricated information.”

Long-simmering tensions between Thailand and Cambodia erupted in July, triggering five days of military clashes at multiple areas along the roughly 800-kilometer (500-mile) border. The fighting was the deadliest in recent history, leaving nearly four dozen people dead and displacing more than 300,000.

A ceasefire agreement was reached days later during talks in Malaysia and a peace accord was signed in October in a ceremony presided over by Trump. The agreement included deploying observers from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations to help maintain peace.

Map: news.sky.com

Why are Thailand and Cambodia fighting? ‘The New York Times’ explained.

The conflict between Thailand and Cambodia is driven by nationalist rivalries and long-running border disputes, and fighting has broken out intermittently since 2008. Before the clashes in July, the last time that a major incident turned deadly was in 2011.

Much of the conflict comes down to disagreements over the nearly 500-mile-long boundary between the two nations, large parts of which are undefined.

Those disagreements can be traced to a 1907 map that was created during French colonial rule and that Thailand and Cambodia interpret differently. Some of the most tense areas along the border are home to centuries-old temples.

Arguments about where the border should be, and who owns the temples in the region, have led to decades of friction.

Prasat Preah Vihear and Prasat Ta Muen Thom, both Khmer-era Hindu temples about 95 miles apart, are two of the key sites where tensions flared in July. On Monday, the Thai army said that one of its airstrikes had struck a radio tower near the Preah Vihear temple.

The fighting is a sharp escalation of tensions between the two Southeast Asian nations.

About half a million people have been displaced by this round of fighting. The Thai military said that 438,000 people had gone to shelters, and Cambodian officials said that tens of thousands of people had moved away from the border.

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