Bangkok/Phnom Penh, Dec 25 Thailand's military announced on Thursday that border negotiations with Cambodia have entered the second day, with overall clashes along the frontier showing a downward trend.
According to Thai media reports, the Secretariat meeting of the Thai-Cambodian General Border Committee (GBC) kicked off at around 9 am local time on the Thai side of the border in Chanthaburi province.
Around 30 Cambodian delegates attended the meeting, while Malaysian members of the ASEAN observer team in Thailand also presented, Xinhua news agency reported.
In a press briefing held on Thursday, a Thai military spokesperson stated that the intensity of border skirmishes between the two countries has generally decreased, with exchanges of fire remaining confined to localised areas.
Separately, Thailand's 2nd Army Area Command reported on Thursday that two Thai soldiers were injured by a landmine while conducting demining operations in the Ta Kwai Temple area.
Meanwhile, another Cambodian civilian was killed during the conflict on Thursday, raising the civilian death toll in Cambodia to 31, said a press release from the Cambodian Ministry of Defence.
The Secretariat meeting will be held from Wednesday to Friday, and if these preliminary discussions proceed smoothly, they will be followed by a meeting between the defence ministers of both nations on Saturday, said Thai Ministry of Defence spokesperson Surasant Kongsiri on Wednesday.
The new wave of conflict between Thailand and Cambodia has entered its third week. Along the more than 800-km border, military skirmishes had erupted almost daily, creating a tug-of-war at multiple points and affecting seven border provinces in Thailand. Over 800,000 residents found their daily lives disrupted, with dozens of soldiers and civilians confirmed dead.
Currently, the conflict has escalated beyond military action to a multi-faceted rivalry of information and diplomatic maneuvering at the government level, with the ceasefire process hampered by various factors.
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