Showing posts with label Cease-Fire. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Cease-Fire. Show all posts

Monday, April 25, 2011

DTN News - THAILAND DEFENSE NEWS: Thailand And Cambodia Resume Fighting Along Border

DTN News - THAILAND DEFENSE NEWS: Thailand And Cambodia Resume Fighting Along Border
(NSI News Source Info) TORONTO, Canada - April 25, 2011:

Thai and Cambodian forces have clashed for a fourth day along their disputed border, despite calls by the UN for a ceasefire.

Field commanders on both sides said artillery, mortars and rifle fire were exchanged at nightfall on Monday around Cambodia's Ta Krabey temple.

Twelve soldiers have been killed and 36,000 people displaced in the recent clashes.

Both sides blame each other for the latest fighting, which began on Friday.

Thousands of civilians have fled the border area, seeking refuge from the three days of fighting [Reuters]

The death toll from three days of heavy fighting between Thai and Cambodian troops over a disputed border area has climbed to 12.

Officials on Monday said one soldier had been killed on each side following an exchange of fire in the jungle frontier late on Sunday.

Cambodia also accused Thailand of damaging two ancient temples during the latest clashes, while Thailand accused the Cambodian army of firing artillery shells that did not make it across the border.

Fighting appeared to have resumed on Monday afternoon with several shells fired, following a brief lull in the violence after days of cross-border shelling.

Thailand's foreign minister called for one-on-one talks with Cambodia, a renewed push that came after the cancellation of talks with a top regional envoy.

Indonesian foreign minister Marty Natalegawa had been scheduled to hold talks in Thailand and Cambodia on Monday but his trip was cancelled, government officials from both countries said.

Natalegawa had brokered a UN-backed peace deal in February that would have posted unarmed military observers from Indonesia along the border, but the Thai military has said they are not welcome and the deal has yet to be put in place.

Panitan Wattanayagorn, a Thai government spokesman, said Natalegawa's visit was cancelled because Thailand and Cambodia had not yet settled on terms for the Indonesian observers.

Cambodia has asked for outside mediation to help end the standoff, but Thailand has resisted third-party intervention. However, Kasit Piromya, the Thai foreign minister, declined on Monday to rule them out when speaking to reporters at an evacuation camp.

"It's not something we are opposed to. This is a sensitive issue," he said in a briefing about 30km from the scene of recent fighting.

Ceasefire shattered Both countries have blamed each other for sparking the violence, which is the first serious outbreak of fighting since February, when 10 people were killed in clashes near the 900-year-old Hindu temple Preah Vihear.

Seven Cambodian and five Thai troops have been killed and thousands of civilians have fled the area since the latest clashes began on Friday.

Cambodian soldiers stand guard near by the Cambodia-Thailand border in Oddar Meanchey province on April 25, 2011. Five Thai soldiers and seven Cambodian soldiers have died in the latest clashes

About 20,000 civilians have sought refuge in 16 camps on the Thai side of the border while about 17,000 have been evacuated from Cambodian villages. Some, like 47-year-old Suwech Yodsri, stayed behind to guard their properties, despite the danger of violence.

"I'm scared to be here but I have to be here to protect our village from looting," he told the AFP news agency from the Thai village of Nong Kanna in Surin Province, about five kilometres from the border. "I believe political conflicts are to blame. Innocent people are just being used as a political tool," he added.

Calls for restraint

Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary-general, has called on the neighbours to "exercise maximum restraint" and has urged them to resolve the issue through "serious dialogue" rather than military means.

He also urged the two neighbours to take immediate measures for an effective and verifiable ceasefire. Indonesia, which holds the rotating chairmanship of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations regional bloc, has called for an immediate end to the violence. Vietnam urged "maximum restraint". Ties between the neighbours have been strained since Preah Vihear -- the most celebrated example of ancient Khmer architecture outside Cambodia's Angkor -- was granted UN World Heritage status in July 2008. The International Court of Justice ruled in 1962 that the temple belonged to Cambodia, but both countries claim ownership of a 4.6 square km surrounding area.

*Speaking Image - Creation of DTN News ~ Defense Technology News
*This article is being posted from Toronto, Canada By DTN News ~ Defense-Technology News

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Wednesday, March 23, 2011

DTN News - ASIAN DEFENSE NEWS: China Calls For Immediate Ceasefire In Libya

DTN News - ASIAN DEFENSE NEWS: China Calls For Immediate Ceasefire In Libya
(NSI News Source Info) TORONTO, Canada - March 23, 2011:

China Tuesday warned of an impending "humanitarian disaster" in Libya and called for an immediate ceasefire in the oil-rich North African state where the US and European powers have launched a four-day air assault.

All parties must "immediately cease fire and resolve issues through peaceful means," Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu told reporters in Beijing.

"The original intent of the UN Security Council resolution was to protect the safety of all Libyan people. We oppose the indiscriminate use of armed force there, causing even more civilian casualties and more humanitarian disasters now," the spokeswoman said.

"The future of Libya should be decided by the Libyan people themselves," Jiang said.

Meanwhile, Heavy anti-aircraft fire and loud explosions sounded in Tripoli after nightfall Tuesday, and US military warned Tuesday it was "considering all options" in response to dire conditions in Libya.

U.S. President Barack Obama said Tuesday that Washington is "days away "from turning over command of the air strikes on Libya to its European allies. However, how that will be accomplished remains unclear.

Obama spoke Tuesday with British Prime Minister David Cameron and French President Nicolas Sarkozy in hopes of quickly resolving the squabble over the transition of the war command power.

"When this transition takes place, it is not going to be our planes that are maintaining the no-fly zone. It is not going to be our ships that are necessarily enforcing the arms embargo. That's precisely what the other nations are going to do," Obama said at a news conference in El Salvador as he neared the end of a Latin American trip overshadowed by events in Libya.

Gadhafi, meanwhile, made his first public appearance in a week, promising enthusiastic supporters at his residential compound in Tripoli, "In the short term, we'll beat them, in the long term, we'll beat them."

Libyan state TV broadcast what it said was live coverage of Gadhafi's 5-minute statement. Standing on a balcony, he denounced the coalition bombing attacks on his forces.

"My great Libyan people, you have to live now, this time of glory, this is a time of glory that we are living," he said.

Obama said he has "absolutely no doubt" that a non-U.S. command entity could run the military operation, codenamed "Odyssey Dawn", although the most obvious candidate — the NATO alliance — has yet to sort out a political agreement.

Obama said NATO was meeting to "work out some of the mechanisms."

*Speaking Image - Creation of DTN News ~ Defense Technology News
*This article is being posted from Toronto, Canada By DTN News ~ Defense-Technology News

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