Cambodia’s foreign ministry says Thai machinery dug an earthen trench in Oddar Meanchey on 22 and 24 August. Both governments cite the same December ceasefire terms, which say in their own words that they settle no boundary.
Cambodia’s foreign ministry said on the morning of 28 August that Thai armed forces sent heavy machinery into Cambodian territory on 22 and 24 August. They dug an earthen trench, the ministry said, at Chouk Krous. That is in Thmar Daun village, Kork Morn commune, Banteay Ampil district, Oddar Meanchey province.
Press Release 121 of 2026 carries no coordinate, no photograph, no survey record, no observer finding and no named witness. It proves the protest, not the trench.
Thailand’s foreign ministry published a statement on 26 August headed “Thailand Strictly Adheres to the Ceasefire Agreement and Rejects Cambodia’s Allegations”. Its first paragraph scopes it to allegations regarding the recent visit. Across its three paragraphs it names no machinery, no excavation, no earthworks and no trench.
Thailand published that text two days before Cambodia published the trench protest.
Thailand says its prime minister’s visit on 23 August went to Chong An Ma in Ubon Ratchathani. It stayed on the Thai side, Thailand says, and conformed strictly to the December terms. Its stated purpose was to see personnel, among them a soldier wounded by a landmine six days earlier.
Cambodia’s release of 25 August calls the same ground the An Seh area of Choam Ksan district, Preah Vihear, and calls the visit unauthorised. The two governments do not use the same name for that ground. Neither release settles which name is right.
Cambodia’s release cites Article 5 of a memorandum the two signed on 14 June 2000. The article says that authorities of either Government and their agents shall not carry out any work resulting in changes of environment of the frontier zone. The one thing it allows is work carried out by the Joint Technical Sub-Commission in the interest of the survey and demarcation.
That sub-commission is the survey arm of the Joint Boundary Commission, the two-country body meant to mark the border. Its survey work is the only exception the article makes. The clause uses one set of words for both sides, and what it forbids is changing the ground, not being on it.
The memorandum never says what the frontier zone is. Its nine articles, read in full on 28 August, give no width, no test and no method for finding the edge of it.
Cambodia’s release also cites Item I, the section on de-escalation measures, of the Joint Statement of 27 December 2025. Those are the ceasefire terms the two defence ministers signed. Paragraph 6 of that Item has both sides agree to refrain from constructing or enhancing any military infrastructure or fortifications beyond their own side.
The same Item’s paragraph 3 has both sides agree that all arrangements under the statement are without prejudice to the border demarcation and international boundary. Without prejudice means the document settles nothing about that question. In the same paragraph they agree to go back to the Joint Boundary Commission to resume the survey and the marking. Paragraph 6 turns on a side that paragraph 3 declines to locate.
The ministry listed Chouk Krous on 3 January among Oddar Meanchey areas it says Thai forces seized in December. In an April release it alleged bunkers and a road there. It alleged barbed wire near Boundary Pillar No. 22, one of the numbered border markers, in the same village on 9 July. Cambodia’s earlier releases spell the place Chok Krous. What those dates add up to is protests.
The memorandum says what happens when the two governments disagree about its words. Article VIII sends any such dispute to consultation and negotiation between the two sides, and gives no third party the power to decide.
