Name: What are the terms of the new Thailand-Cambodia ceasefire agreement? | DW News
Uploaded: 2025-12-31T13:06:11.000Z
Duration: 4 min 3 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

Thailand and Cambodia have agreed to a ceasefire to end weeks of deadly border clashes.

It's expected to come into effect at noon local time.

In a joint statement, both sides agreed to freeze troop movements and allow civilians living in border areas to return home.

A long standing border conflict between the Southeast Asian neighbors reignited this month.

The fighting is believed to have killed more than 100 and displaced hundreds of thousands of people.

The dispute stems largely from a century old map created when Cambodia was still under French colonial rule.

Joining me now is journalist Tommy Walker who is following this story from the border between Thailand and Cambodia.

Is it realistic to believe this new ceasefire will hold?

Yes, I mean, Thailand and Cambodia have flashed out this deal this week with several days of talks.

There was some initial concern that the first day only lasted for 35 minutes.

Second day there was some political maneuvering and some adjourned sessions.

But finally both countries have came to an agreement that this ceasefire will come into effect, which was about an hour ago now, 1 o' clock local time now.

So 12 o' clock local time was the time the ceasefire came into force.

Now both countries are just waiting to see whether each other can adhere to this.

Both Bangkok and Phnom Penh will be monitoring to make sure the ceasefire is kept in force.

And then we might start to see a return of normality in terms of civilians going back to their homes on the border areas.

As we mentioned, the long standing border conflict reignited earlier this month.

Remind our viewers what happened and what's at the root of this.

Thailand and Cambodia share an 800 kilometer border.

There are many disputes along this border whether it's to do with territory, borderlines, temples.

And some of these disputes have been long standing for many years.

Even this year there's been some exchanges, small armed fire exchanges at the border which led to border closures, borders.

Thailand has accused Cambodia of planting landmines which has been injuring Thai soldiers.

And then we've seen this spark that's let's ignite this conflict.

The conflict was put to a ceasefire in July and then signed in October with the help of US President Donald Trump.

But then we've seen small arms fire in this trigger point again which has seen the conflict happen again in December.

So you know, these are long standing issues over territory, temples as mentioned, and ancient borderlines.

So right now both countries are just hoping that, you know, each other doesn't break the ceasefire and that they can have an everlasting peace.

Tom as you all know, similar conflicts started by colonial powers many argue exist in Africa, in the Middle east, and

What's different in this particular case?

Well, some of the root causes of these disputes have been over maps which were made during colonial rule, during French colonial rule and have been disputed by Thailand.

And that's one of the root causes is that these maps show that some territory is within Cambodia's territory and some that's in Thailand.

Thailand has disputed that these maps are incorrect.

So this is one of the reasons why this conflict has went on for so long.

These disputes have went on for so long because they've been made these maps, these borderlines have been created during colonial times.