What’s Next for the Cambodia-Laos Border Dispute?

VIENTIANE, Dec 13, 2018, The Diplomat. Last week, there was a flurry of activity in Cambodia-Laos relations tied to Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen’s anticipated visit to Laos. While both sides discussed a range of issues within their bilateral relationship, the interaction also once again put the focus on the outstanding border dispute between the two sides, reported The Cambodia Daily.

As I have noted previously in these pages, Laos and Cambodia, two neighboring Southeast Asian states, share a 540-kilometer, partly demarcated land border, which has been a source of occasional disputes and differences. A case in point was in August 2017, when simmering border tensions yet again threatened to boil over into potential conflict and the situation was only de-escalated following intervention by the leaderships of both sides.