24/12/2025

WEDNESDAY | DEC 24, 2025

7

Border meeting in doubt

o Thailand rejects neutral venue request

claim to have the trust and willingness necessary to sustain mediation efforts as China, whose balanced and constructive approach provides a stable impetus for de escalation of the tensions, as it did in helping broker reconciliation between Iran and Saudi Arabia last year,” China Daily wrote in an editorial on Monday. – Reuters Thailand’s defence minister said the last border committee meeting was held in Cambodia’s Koh Kong province, so it was Thailand’s turn to host, adding that there was nothing to fear as Thais could separate military and diplomatic matters. But Nattaphon also said Thai forces would keep fighting as long as Cambodia did, as combat that has stretched along nearly the entirety of the border so far has only calmed in parts of two provinces. The Cambodian Defence Ministry said Thai forces shelled the Cambodian border city of Poipet and bombed parts of the border province of Preah Vihear yesterday. – AFP

government officials, as part of China’s shuttle diplomacy. China, which calls itself a “friend” and “close neighbour” to both Cambodia and Thailand, has been seeking to facilitate mediation. It says it has been promoting a resolution to the conflict “in its own way”. “In a region marked by complex historical sensitivities, few actors can But in a letter to his Thai counterpart Nattaphon Narkphanit, Cambodian Defence Minister Tea Seiha requested the meeting be held in Kuala Lumpur for security reasons. “Due to the ongoing fighting along the border, this meeting should be held in a safe and neutral venue,” Tea Seiha wrote in the letter, which AFP obtained yesterday. round of fighting, but the ceasefire was short-lived. Thai Foreign Minister Sihasak Phuangketkeow on Monday announced the parley with Cambodia after a crisis meeting in Kuala Lumpur with his Asean counterparts.

whether the meeting happened or not depended on Cambodia. A Cambodian government spokesman told AFP he had no updated information on the meeting venue. The conflict stems from a territorial dispute over the colonial era demarcation of their 800km border and a smattering of ancient temple ruins. Each side has blamed the other for instigating the fresh fighting since Dec 7 and traded accusations of attacks on civilians, after five days of clashes in July killed dozens. The United States, China and Malaysia brokered a truce to end that

to negotiate truce terms this week, but Cambodia asked Thailand to hold the talks in a neutral venue. Thailand’s Defence Ministry, however, said yesterday that the bilateral border committee meeting would go ahead in Thailand’s Chanthaburi province today as planned. “We guarantee Chanthaburi is safe. This province is the original plan for hosting the GBC (General Border Committee) even before the fighting started,” its spokesperson Surasant Kongsiri told reporters. Surasant said officials from the border committee would meet from today to Saturday, adding that

BANGKOK: Thailand yesterday rejected a request by Cambodia to hold bilateral talks in a neutral country, leaving a planned meeting to negotiate an end to border clashes in doubt. The border conflict reignited this month, shattering an earlier truce, killing more than 40 people and displacing over 900,000 on both sides, officials said. Both countries on Monday agreed India to provide US$450 million aid to Sri Lanka COLOMBO: India has committed US$450 million (RM1.8 billion) in humanitarian assistance to help Sri Lanka recover from the devastating damage caused by Cyclone Ditwah , Foreign Minister S. Jaishankar said yesterday on a visit to the country. The cyclone killed more than 640 people when it swept across the South Asian island last month, causing floods and landslides that inflicted about US$4 billion in damage, according to the World Bank, or 4% of the country’s GDP. Sri Lankan President Anura Kumara Dissanayake has described the storm, which affected more than two million people, as the most challenging natural disaster in the island’s history. Jaishankar, who is on a two-day visit, told a media briefing in Colombo he had handed a letter from Prime Minister Narendra Modi to Dissanayake, committing to a “reconstruction package of US$450 million”. While US$350 million will take the form of “concessional lines of credit”, the remaining US$100 million will be given as grants. Jaishankar also noted the 1,100 tonnes of relief material, along with medicine and other necessary equipment, sent to India’s southern neighbour in the cyclone’s immediate aftermath. “Given the scale of damage, restoring connectivity was clearly an immediate priority,” he said, detailing the Indian military’s assistance in providing portable bridges. Jaishankar said India would also look at other ways to mitigate the losses, including encouraging Indian tourism to Sri Lanka. “Similarly, an increase in foreign direct investment from India can boost your economy at a critical time,” he said. The cyclone struck as Sri Lanka was emerging from its worst-ever economic meltdown in 2022, when it ran out of foreign exchange reserves to pay for essential imports such as food, fuel and medicines. Following a US$2.9 billion bailout from the International Monetary Fund approved in early 2023, the country’s economy has stabilised. – AFP

Chinese envoy urges resumption of ceasefire BEIJING: The top priority for Thailand and Cambodia is to agree to a ceasefire, resume dialogue and resolve their border disputes peacefully, a special Chinese envoy to the region said. China supports Asean’s mediation efforts and is willing to once again create conditions and provide a platform for talks between the two sides, the Chinese Foreign Ministry said yesterday, citing its Special Envoy for Asian Affairs Deng Xijun. Deng recently travelled to the two countries, meeting their prime ministers and other senior China has joined top Asean diplomats in urging both countries to exercise restraint and take steps to halt fighting.

Marky and his wife campaigning in Kawhmu earlier this month. – AFPPIC

Former political prisoner runs for Suu Kyi’s seat KAWHMU: Myanmar parliamentary candidate Kyaw Kyaw Htwe was once jailed for pro-democracy activism. Now he is vying for votes in an election starting on Sunday, coveting the former seat of Aung San Suu Kyi. For the 60-year-old, the decision to contest is not a betrayal of principles but a compromise in a country crippled by division. to-shoulder with Suu Kyi in the 1988 pro-democracy protests challenging the rule of previous military dictator Ne Win and catapulting her to fame. Soldiers opened fire on the crowds killing around 3,000, Suu Kyi was whisked off to house arrest and Marky began the first of his prison stints that have totalled about 15 years. and mustard yellow, often involving speaking to groups of just a handful of voters at a time. “Now doing politics is being seen as committing a sin,” said Marky. Politics in Myanmar has always involved dealing with the military – which has ruled the country for most of its post-independence history.

Suu Kyi’s real child sees anyone running to overwrite his octogenarian mother’s 2020 mandate as a dupe. “Some people just lose their path,” said Kim Aris from his home in Britain. “This is so far from being free and fair that anybody even being involved in it is just being delusional.” But some voters have a nothing to-lose mindset about voting. When a new parliament convenes, army officers will still claim a quarter of seats and the pro military Union Solidarity and Development Party are considered the frontrunners in the restricted campaign. Marky may find himself in a legislature opposed as illegitimate by many. Still, he believes in taking part in the vote. “We believe there will be a beginning of a better road after the election. If we do not do this work, who else will?” – AFP

Even during the decade-long democratic thaw starting in 2011 when Suu Kyi was released and won civilian office, a quarter of parliamentary seats and key Cabinet positions were reserved for officers. A more ebullient campaigner than her husband who spent years sequestered in jail, wife Su Su Nway tries to curry support for him over loudspeaker by deftly alluding to Suu Kyi, whose party she once joined. Casting herself as a proxy for the sidelined leader, she tells locals: “I’m mother’s daughter”. “Please do not say that mother cannot come.”

A two-hour drive south of Yangon in her former constituency Kawhmu, Marky battles apathy. “People here have let politics go since Suu Kyi was detained,” he said, using the affectionate honorific many still call her by. “Politics has disappeared lately. So we have to try to get it back on track.” Marky’s campaign is less about policy than about asking people to buy back into electoral politics – albeit on the military’s terms. It is slow, unglamorous work for his volunteers wearing shirts and caps in party colours of ketchup red

“We do not expect the whole country will be covered with gold after elections,” said the People’s Party candidate known to friends, and family by the nickname “Marky”. “We can get other opportunities step-by-step, only when the country has stability,” he said. Myanmar’s military snatched power in a 2021 coup toppling Suu Kyi’s government, declaring as fraudulent elections she won by a landslide and dissolving her party. Now it has scheduled new polls; pledging to return democracy. Marky once dissented shoulder