Secretary of State Marco Rubio said American diplomats were in Malaysia on Monday to help broker a cease-fire between Cambodia and Thailand, which are engaged in a deadly conflict along the countries’ border.
The leaders of Cambodia and Thailand agreed on Sunday to begin cease-fire talks in Malaysia’s capital, Kuala Lumpur. President Trump said he had spoken to both leaders and that U.S. officials would not negotiate trade deals with either country unless the fighting stopped.
At least 35 people have been killed since the combat began on Thursday, and hundreds of thousands of civilians have fled the border areas where it is taking place. Fighting apparently continued early Monday, with the sound of explosions heard near the border before dawn.
The conflict flared after two months of tension over contested territory. As of Monday, the death toll exceeded that from the last outbreak of deadly battles in the region, between 2008 and 2011, during which 34 people were killed, according to an academic paper.
Some Cambodians have fled to the homes of family members and friends here in Siem Reap, the site of the ancient Angkor Wat temple complex. Siem Reap has been untouched by the violence, but at Hindu and Buddhist shrines around Angkor Wat, people have held ceremonies to pray for a quick resolution to the war. On Sunday, after Mr. Trump announced his diplomatic intervention, residents began talking in hopeful terms of an American role in prodding the warring governments toward a cease-fire.
Mr. Trump recently set a new deadline of Aug. 1 for 12 nations, including Thailand and Cambodia, to reach trade deals with the American government, saying he would otherwise impose tariffs of 36 percent on U.S. businesses that import their goods. He is now using that threat as leverage in an attempt to stop the fighting.
The State Department said on Sunday that Mr. Rubio had spoken with the top diplomats of both Thailand and Cambodia. Mr. Rubio met with both men in Kuala Lumpur earlier this month, at a gathering of foreign ministers from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, a regional group whose rotating chairmanship Malaysia holds this year.
“Both President Trump and I remain engaged with our respective counterparts for each country and are monitoring the situation very closely,” Mr. Rubio said in an announcement late Sunday in Washington, early in Asia’s Monday morning. “We want this conflict to end as soon as possible.”
Chinese officials will also join the talks in Kuala Lumpur, according to Cambodia’s prime minister, Hun Manet. China is a leading trade partner of both Thailand and Cambodia, and its top foreign policy official, Wang Yi, attended the regional gathering of diplomats in Kuala Lumpur this month. China has played a growing role in trying to broker settlements in international conflicts.
Thailand is a military ally of the United States and often hosts military exercises involving American troops, while Cambodia hosts a naval base largely funded by China and has been a consistent diplomatic supporter of Beijing in Southeast Asia. But countries across the region often try to balance their relations between the United States and China, rather than decisively align themselves with one of the two powers.
Sun Narin contributed reporting.
Edward Wong reports on global affairs, U.S. foreign policy and the State Department for The Times.
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