PHNOM PENH — Cambodia says it and Thailand have agreed confidence-building measures in their sea dispute, but the one clause it has made public simply lets each government answer the other. Both parties, its release says, “recognize their right to make statements to protect their legitimate rights or to correct factual misinformation and disinformation.”
The Cambodian foreign ministry’s press release, issued late Sunday and relayed by Xinhua, closed a five-day session of the UN-backed conciliation commission in The Hague. The two governments have a record of public sparring over their land border, and TEH has followed the Thailand-Cambodia ceasefire since it was first declared.
That makes the unpublished remainder the story. The release describes the measures only by purpose, as “aimed at fostering mutual trust and facilitating an equitable and amicable solution in accordance with international law.” Xinhua’s account names no other measure. It adds that the commission observed that earlier agreed measures have not yet been fully implemented and urged both sides to carry them out. Which ones, and which side fell short, is not stated.
Xinhua reported that the commission’s third meeting runs from Nov. 24 to 27 in Kuala Lumpur, but Thailand’s side of the account is thinner. The Thai government English-language pages TEH could read on Monday carried no readout of the meeting; the latest item it found was the foreign ministry’s Oct. 9 preview, which said Bangkok would give the commission “the relevant technical facts.”
The positions have not converged. At the first meeting in September, Cambodia’s foreign minister, Prak Sokhonn, said his country wanted a treaty fixing “a single, all-purpose maritime boundary.” Thailand’s Government Public Relations Department said in June that Bangkok considers Cambodia’s proposed joint development framework premature until the boundary is clarified.
The commission cannot impose either view. Chaired by Katrina Cooper of Australia, it can only recommend; Thailand’s foreign ministry has said its report will not bind either side and the process will take about 12 months. By TEH’s arithmetic, the three meetings (three days in Singapore, five in The Hague, four in Kuala Lumpur) add up to 12 days of formal sessions, counting every date in the announced ranges and no written submissions. The Permanent Court of Arbitration, which acts as registry, points to Timor-Leste and Australia, whose conciliation ended in a treaty signed on 6 March 2018, as a notable example.
What neither government has said is what the new measures ask of the other, or who failed to honour the old ones.
