Latest news with #militaryconflict
Reuters
3 hours ago
- Politics
- Reuters
Exclusive: Trump's call broke deadlock in Thailand-Cambodia border crisis
BANGKOK, July 31 (Reuters) - First came a push from the Malaysian premier, then China reached out, but it was only after U.S. President Donald Trump called Thailand's leader last week that Bangkok agreed to talks with Cambodia to end an escalating military conflict. A flurry of diplomatic efforts over a 20-hour window sealed Thailand's participation in ceasefire negotiations with Cambodia, hosted in Malaysia, halting the heaviest fighting between two Southeast Asian countries in over a decade. Reuters interviewed four people on both sides of the border to piece together the most detailed account of how the truce was achieved, including previously unreported Thai conditions for joining the talks and the extent of Chinese involvement in the process. When Trump called Thai Acting Prime Minister Phumtham Wechayachai on Saturday, two days after fighting erupted along a 200-km-long stretch of the border, Bangkok had not responded to mediation offers from Malaysia and China, said a Thai government source with direct knowledge. "We told him that we want bilateral talks first before declaring a ceasefire," the source said, asking not to be named because of the sensitivity of the issue. Thailand had already made it clear that it favoured bilateral negotiation and initially did not want third-party mediation to resolve the conflict. On Sunday, a day after his initial call, Trump said that Thailand and Cambodia had agreed to meet to work out a ceasefire, and that Washington wouldn't move ahead with tariff negotiations with both until the conflict had ended. The source said as the Thai and Cambodian foreign ministries started talking, following Trump's call, Bangkok set out its terms: the meeting must be between the two prime ministers and at a neutral location. "We proposed Malaysia because we want this to be a regional matter," the source said. "The U.S. really pushed for the meeting," a second Thai source said, "We want a peaceful solution to the conflict so we had to show good faith and accept." A Thai government spokesperson did not immediately respond to questions from Reuters. Cambodia had accepted the initial Malaysian offer for talks but it was Thailand that did not move ahead until Trump's intervention, said Lim Menghour, a Cambodian government official working on foreign policy. Prime Minister Hun Manet's government also kept a channel open with China, which had shown interest in joining any peace talks between the neighbours, he said, reflecting Phnom Penh's close ties to Beijing. "We exchanged regular communication," Lim Menghour said. On Monday, Phumtham and Hun Manet went to the Malaysian administrative capital of Putrajaya, where they were hosted by Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim, also the current chair of the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations regional bloc. At the end of their talks, the two leaders stood on either side of Anwar, who read out a joint statement that said Thailand and Cambodia would enter into a ceasefire from midnight and continue dialogue. The rapid parleys echoed efforts to diffuse severe border clashes between Thailand and Cambodia in 2011, which took several months including mediation efforts by Indonesia, then chair of ASEAN. But those talks had not directly involved the U.S. and China. The fragile ceasefire was holding as of Thursday, despite distrust on both sides, and neither military has scaled down troop deployment along the frontier. Thailand and Cambodia have, for decades, quarrelled over undemarcated parts of their 817 km (508 miles) land border, which was first mapped by France in 1907 when the latter was its colony. In recent months, tensions began building between the neighbours after the death of a Cambodian soldiers in a skirmish in May and escalated into both militaries bolstering border deployments, alongside a full-blown diplomatic crisis. After a second Thai soldier lost a limb last week to a landmine that Thailand alleged Cambodian troops had planted, Bangkok recalled its ambassador to Phnom Penh and expelled Cambodia's envoy. Cambodia has denied the charge. The fighting began soon after. Since the ceasefire deal, Hun Manet and Phumtham have been effusive in their praise for Trump, who had threatened 36% tariffs on goods from both countries coming to the U.S., their biggest export market. The Thai sources did not say whether tariff talks had been impacted by the border clashes. Lim Menghour said after the "positive talks, President Donald Trump also showed positive developments" regarding tariffs, without elaborating. Trump said tariff negotiations with both countries resumed after the ceasefire agreement. U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said on Wednesday that Washington has made trade deals with Cambodia and Thailand, but they are yet to be announced.
Associated Press
a day ago
- Politics
- Associated Press
Ugandan and South Sudanese troops clash at border, killing at least 4
KAMPALA, Uganda (AP) — Troops from Uganda and South Sudan clashed along the border between their countries in a firefight that left at least four dead, a Ugandan military official said Wednesday, as tensions flared over disputed border demarcations. Three South Sudanese soldiers were shot dead by Ugandan forces who retaliated after one of their soldiers was killed on Monday, said Maj. Gen. Felix Kulayigye, spokesperson for the Ugandan military. But Wani Jackson Mule, a local official in South Sudan's Central Equatoria state, said he received the bodies of five soldiers. The firefight occurred in a remote part of northwestern Uganda, known as West Nile, when South Sudanese soldiers crossed further into Ugandan territory, set up camp and refused to leave, according to Kulayigye. 'We had to apply force,' he said. Mule described the firefight as a 'surprise attack' by Ugandan forces in territory they consider to lie within South Sudan. A spokesman for South Sudan's military, Maj. Gen. Lul Ruai Koang, said military leaders from South Sudan and Uganda have agreed to an immediate ceasefire to enable an investigation of the latest border clash. Sections of the Uganda-South Sudan border have been contested for years. Leaders from the two countries have set up a joint border demarcation committee whose work is ongoing, Kulayigye said. Officials from both countries have previously said that they expect to reach a firm decision in 2027. Although there have been sporadic border clashes over the years, the exchange of fire between the military allies is rare. Ugandan forces have been deployed to South Sudan to help support President Salva Kiir against forces loyal to Vice President Riek Machar. Ugandan special forces are deployed in Juba, the capital, and elsewhere in South Sudan. ___ Machol reported from Juba, South Sudan. ___ More AP Africa news:
The Herald
2 days ago
- Politics
- The Herald
Indian forces killed three 'terrorists' behind Kashmir attack, home minister says
Indian forces have killed three 'terrorists' involved in the April attack on Hindu tourists in Jammu and Kashmir federal territory in which 26 men were killed and which led to a military conflict with Pakistan, home minister Amit Shah said on Tuesday. The attackers, who New Delhi said were Pakistanis backed by Islamabad, opened fire in a valley popular with tourists in Kashmir's scenic, mountainous region of Pahalgam, before fleeing into the surrounding pine forests. Islamist Pakistan denied involvement in the attack — the worst assault on civilians in India since the 2008 Mumbai attacks — and sought an independent investigation. The four-day fighting between the nuclear-armed rivals was their worst in decades. Reuters
New York Times
2 days ago
- Politics
- New York Times
India Says It Killed 3 Militants Behind Spring Terrorist Attack in Kashmir
Indian security forces gunned down three assailants they said were involved in a deadly terrorist attack in Kashmir this spring, officials said on Tuesday, three months after the slaughter of civilians in a scenic park started a military conflict with neighboring Pakistan. Amit Shah, India's home minister, told the country's Parliament that security forces had followed the men in 'high-altitude forest' in the months since the April attack that killed 26 civilians, almost all of them tourists. The soldiers finally killed them in a shootout on Monday near the city of Srinagar, the capital city of India's Jammu and Kashmir region. Some Indian news outlets reported the killings on Monday, when the Indian Parliament began a debate on the government's handling of its conflict with Pakistan. But officials had urged caution, as they were still identifying the bodies to confirm they were those wanted over the attack in the Pahalgam area. Mr. Shah told Parliament on Tuesday that all three of the militants killed were Pakistani nationals and were all were involved in the terrorist attack. Prime Minister Narendra Modi's administration has come under pressure from the opposition for failing to track down the attackers for so long and because of how it conducted the clash with Pakistan, including how the escalations between the two nuclear-armed neighbors ended under pressure from President Trump. Even after India went into battle with Pakistan, accusing its neighbor of supporting militants who target India, many details about the incident were not publicly disclosed, including the exact number of attackers and their identities. There have also been questions over how such a security lapse could happen in one of the world's most militarized regions. Mr. Shah, the home minister, did not make it clear whether any of other attackers remained unaccounted for. 'It has been 100 days, and this government has not been able to catch those five terrorists,' Gaurav Gogoi, a leader of Indian National Congress party, the main opposition, said in Parliament on Monday before news reports of the killings started filtering through. New Delhi has long accused Pakistan's military of using militancy for proxy warfare by harboring and training groups who wage violence in India, particularly in the Kashmir valley. The region has been disputed ever since Pakistan was cleaved from India at the end of British colonial rule. Pakistani officials have accused India of starting the military conflict without providing proof that the militants behind the Pahalgam attack were tied to their country. After the terrorist attack in Pahalgam — where Hindu men were separated from their families and killed after being asked about their religion — Mr. Modi vowed military action against Pakistan. He also paused India's participation in a water-sharing treaty and downgraded its already minimal diplomatic ties. But after India's military action, its air forces suffered unwanted setbacks. As Indian jets flew along the border before dawn, targeting what were identified as terrorist camps inside Pakistan, the Pakistani side managed to shoot down some of the Indian aircraft. The attacks brought back bitter memories of similar incident in 2019, when Pakistan managed to capture an Indian pilot after shooting down his jet in a similar buildup of tensions. Indian officials remained largely silent about their losses as they extended their strikes to Pakistani military targets in the subsequent days of a conflict marked by heavy use of drones and missiles from both sides. Satellite images showed that they had managed to inflict damage on Pakistani military installations. 'In any exam, what matters is the result,' Rajnath Singh, India's defense minister, said during the parliamentary debate on Monday. 'If a student returns with good marks, it's their marks that should matter to us. We shouldn't be concerned about whether their pencil broke or they lost their pen during the exam.' The manner in which the fighting ended has also brought scrutiny on Mr. Modi. Mr. Trump made a surprise announcement from Washington that his officials had forced the agreement for a cessation of violence on both countries by using trade threats as leverage. India quickly tried to play that down, saying the request for a cease-fire had come from the Pakistani side under pressure from India's military assaults. But to New Delhi's embarrassment, Mr. Trump has repeated his claim more than two dozen times — something Mr. Modi's opposition has jumped on. In the raucous parliamentary debate on Monday, one Indian opposition lawmaker, Deepender Hooda, took a jab at Mr. Modi's struggle with Mr. Trump by suggesting an out-of-the-box trade lever of his own. 'Either shut Donald's mouth,' he said, 'or shut McDonalds in India.'
Al Jazeera
2 days ago
- Politics
- Al Jazeera
India claims to have killed all suspects of Kashmir's Pahalgam attack
India's Home Minister Amit Shah has said three suspected rebels killed in Indian-administered Kashmir were responsible for the April killings of tourists in the disputed region's Pahalgam that led to an intense military conflict with Pakistan. The minister's comments came on Tuesday, a day after the heavily-armed suspects were killed in a joint operation by the military, paramilitary and police on the outskirts of Kashmir's main city of Srinagar. 'I want to tell the Parliament, those who attacked in Baisaran were three terrorists and all three have been killed,' said Shah, referring to the area near the Kashmiri town of Pahalgam where 26 people, mostly Hindu tourists, were shot dead on April 22. India accused Pakistan of backing the attackers, a charge Islamabad denied, leading to an intense four-day conflict between the nuclear-armed rivals in May that killed more than 70 people on both sides. Shah said all three were Pakistani nationals and identified two of them as members of Lashkar-e-Taiba, a Pakistan-based armed group. 'Indian security agencies have detailed evidence of their involvement in the attack,' Shah said in a speech in the Lok Sabha, the lower house of Parliament. Monday's operation took place in the mountains of Dachigam, about 30km (18 miles) from Srinagar, the army said in a statement. Shah said a security meeting was held immediately after the attack, and it was decided that the attackers should not be 'allowed to leave the country and return to Pakistan'. Investigators relied on witness accounts and forensic evidence to establish that the rifles found on the men were the same ones that were used in the April attack, he said. 'It was confirmed that these three rifles were involved in the killing of our innocent civilians,' said Shah. Retracted claim of responsibility All those killed in the April attack were listed as residents of India except one man from Nepal. Survivors said the attackers had separated the men from the women and children and ordered some of them to recite the Muslim declaration of faith. Another armed group called The Resistance Front (TRF) initially claimed responsibility for the attack. But as public criticism mounted over the killings, it retracted the claim. Earlier this month, the United States designated TRF as a 'foreign terrorist organisation'. Muslim-majority Kashmir has been divided between India and Pakistan since their independence from British rule in 1947, and the neighbours – who both claim the region in full – have fought two wars and several conflicts over its control. Since 1989, Kashmiri rebels have been fighting against Indian rule, demanding independence or the region's merger with Pakistan. India accuses Pakistan of backing the violence, but Islamabad says it only provides diplomatic support to the Kashmiris' struggle for self-determination.
