Asean's quiet diplomacy helped halt Thai-Cambodian clashes, says sec-gen

Grouping exploring the deployment of monitoring team to support ceasefire

- Hariz Baharudin

Asean played a pivotal role in helping to halt the July border conflict between Thailand and Cambodia, but its hands were tied to a large extent, given that the clash's root causes were embedded in domestic dynamics on both sides.

What the grouping could do was to try to keep the fighting under control, bring the temperature down and to give space for both sides to talk, said its Secretary-General Kao Kim Hourn in an exclusive interview with The Straits Times on Aug 5.

"I think what (Asean) has done constructively is to keep it under control and then try to de-escalate. And then after that, they go back to negotiate," he said, referring to the two South-east Asian neighbours.

Looking ahead, he is hopeful that the region will not see a repeat of what happened when clashes between Thailand and Cambodia left more than 40 dead and displaced over 300,000, in the most serious case of Asean countries fighting each other in recent times.

On Aug 7, the final day of a four-day bilateral meeting in Malaysia, which currently holds the Asean chairmanship, the defence ministers of Cambodia and Thailand are set to meet, joined by observers from Malaysia, the United States and China.

Politics in both Thailand and Cambodia—exacerbated by online nationalism and disinformation—had made substantive mediation difficult, Dr Kao said. Still, he saw the eventual outcome as a success.

A fragile ceasefire between Cambodia and Thailand was brokered in Kuala Lumpur on July 28, following emergency mediation led by Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim.

The talks, backed by the US and China, brought together Cambodia's Prime Minister Hun Manet and Thailand's Acting Prime Minister Phumtham Wechayachai for a face-to-face meeting.

Tensions between Cambodia and Thailand have simmered for years, but this latest conflict was made worse by political pressures at home in both countries to stand firm on matters of sovereignty.