Bangkok
Reuters
—
Thailand’s chief vowed to keep fighting on the disputed border with Cambodia as fighter jets struck targets on Saturday, hours after US President Donald Trump stated he had brokered a ceasefire.
Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul posted on Facebook that 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 within the long-running border dispute in October, spoke to Anutin and Cambodian premier Hun Manet on Friday, and stated that they had agreed to “cease all shooting.”
Neither of them talked about any settlement in statements after their calls with Trump, and Anutin stated there was no ceasefire.
“I want to make it clear. Our actions this morning already spoke,” Anutin stated.
The White House didn’t instantly reply to a request for touch upon the continued fighting.
Hun Manet, in a press release on Saturday on Facebook, stated Cambodia continues to search a peaceable decision of disputes in step with the October settlement.
Since Monday, Cambodia and Thailand have been exchanging heavy-weapons hearth at a number of factors alongside the 817-km (508-mile) border, in a few of the heaviest fighting because the five-day conflict in July. Trump halted that fighting, the worst in latest reminiscence, with calls to each leaders.
Trump, who has repeatedly stated he deserves the Nobel Peace Prize, has been eager to intervene once more to rescue the truce. Thailand suspended it final month after a Thai soldier was maimed by a landmine, considered one of many who Bangkok says have been newly laid by Cambodia.
Cambodia, which nominated Trump for the peace prize in August, rejects the landmine allegations.
On Saturday, a Thai Defence Ministry spokesman, Rear Admiral Surasant Kongsiri, advised a press convention that clashes had taken place throughout seven border provinces and Cambodia had fired heavy weapons, “making it necessary for Thailand to retaliate.”
Cambodia’s Information Ministry stated Thai forces had struck bridges and buildings in a single day and fired artillery from a naval vessel.
Thai chief Anutin dismissed feedback by Trump {that a} “roadside bomb” that wounded Thai troopers was unintended, saying the incident was “definitely not a roadside accident.”
Cambodia’s Hun Manet stated he had requested the US and Malaysia, which has been a mediator in peace talks, to use their intelligence gathering capabilities to “verify which side fired first” within the newest spherical of fighting.