Thailand Demands Unilateral Ceasefire From Cambodia As Border Clashes Continue

Last Updated:December 16, 2025, 21:34 IST

Thailand demands Cambodia declare a ceasefire first as border clashes continue, killing 32 and displacing 800000.

Thailand demands Cambodia declare a ceasefire first as border clashes continue, killing 32 and displacing 800000.

Thailand has said Cambodia must be the first to declare a ceasefire to end the latest round of fighting between the two Southeast Asian neighbours, as clashes along their disputed border continue despite international efforts to calm tensions.

“As the aggressor onto Thai territory, Cambodia must announce the ceasefire first," Thai Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maratee Nalita Andamo said at a briefing in Bangkok on Tuesday, according to AFP.

The fighting, rooted in long-standing rival claims over stretches of their 817-kilometre land border, flared up again after a skirmish on December 7. Since then, clashes at multiple locations have killed at least 32 people, including both soldiers and civilians, and displaced around 800,000 people on either side of the border, officials said.

Reporting from a temple sheltering internally displaced people in Thailand’s Sisaket province, Al Jazeera correspondent Jack Barton said the sounds of combat were still clearly audible. “We can still hear the fighting," he said, referring to outgoing Thai artillery fire and incoming Cambodian Grad rocket attacks.

The renewed violence has effectively collapsed a ceasefire brokered earlier this year by US President Donald Trump, which had ended five days of intense fighting in July. Trump had used the threat of trade tariffs as leverage and last week claimed that Thailand and Cambodia had agreed to a new ceasefire starting Saturday night.

However, Bangkok has denied that any truce is in place, saying clashes have continued daily since the latest escalation.

Thai Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul said there was no international pressure on Thailand to halt the fighting. “No one is pressuring us. Who is pressuring whom? I don’t know," he told reporters on Tuesday, declining to comment on whether Washington was using trade measures to push for a ceasefire, according to Reuters.

Meanwhile, Thai authorities are working to repatriate up to 6,000 citizens stranded after Cambodia closed a key border checkpoint in Poipet. Cambodia’s former prime minister and current Senate president, Hun Sen, said the closure was intended to protect civilians from what he described as indiscriminate firing by Thai forces.

Thai defence ministry spokesperson Surasant Kongsiri said there had been “continuous fighting across the border" in eight Thai provinces. Cambodia’s defence ministry, meanwhile, said its troops would “continue to stand strong, brave and steadfast in their fight against the aggressor," underscoring the deepening standoff between the two countries.

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