Cambodia and Vietnam to discuss border demarcation

Cambodia and Vietnam to discuss border demarcation

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday issued a press release announcing that the Kingdom and Vietnam have agreed to find mutually acceptable solutions to complete the remaining 16 percent of unmarked land border between them. The agreement was reached in a video conference which took place on Thursday.

“With regard to border cooperation, both sides welcomed the official ceremony to exchange the two important legal documents that record the completion of 84 percent of the boundary demarcation and marker planting between the two countries,” said the ministry.

Cambodian Border Affairs Committee’s (CBAC) deputy chairwoman Koy Pisey told Khmer Times yesterday that the border demarcation with Vietnam is an ongoing process, and she could not say when it will be completed.

“When we signed the 2005 Supplementary Treaty, our committee thought that we could finish the border demarcation initially by 2008, and then by 2012. In fact, the border demarcation task is not predictable, it depends on the locations. In some places, it was very easy to ask villagers to move to live on the land belonging to their own country, in other places, it took a long time to settle problems between people of the two countries,” said Pisey.

She also said that experts from both countries had agreed to use a map with the scale of 1/100,000. However, there are some differences between the border depicted on the map and the situation on the ground.

“In some places where the border on the map between the two countries is supposed to be, sometimes it is in Vietnam, and sometimes it is in Cambodia. As a result, we sometimes need to negotiate with Vietnam’s border experts to ask Vietnamese villagers to move to live on land in Vietnam’s territory,” added Pisey.

The border demarcation negotiation with Vietnam had been halted since last December, when the two countries declared that 84 percent of the 1,270 kilometre border had been demarcated.

The remaining border issues are in six provinces – Ratanakiri, Mondulkiri, Svay Rieng, Kampot, Takeo and Kandal. Currently, both sides have installed 315 border markers. Khmer Times