PHNOM PENH: A senior Cambodia Senate committee member has hit back at Noppadol Inna, a member of the Thai Senate and chairman of the neighbouring Kingdom’s Foreign Affairs Advisory Committee, who has claimed that Thailand respects the Dec 27 ceasefire, that “Cambodia fired first”, Cambodian encroachment and that Phnom Penh has attempted to internationalise the border issue.
Chhiv Yiseang, chair of the Cambodian Senate’s Commission on Foreign Affairs, International Cooperation and Information, rejected Noppadol Inna’s statement as “baseless” while reaffirmed Cambodia’s unassailable sovereignty over its territory, as legally anchored by historical international treaties.
On Sept 2, Inna issued a four-point statement which specifically targeted a statement by Senate president Hun Sen. Hun Sen informed the 2nd Inter-Parliamentary Speakers’ Conference (ISC-2) in Phnom Penh that the Thai military occupied parts of Cambodia after using online scams as a pretext to invade.
Inna also defended a recent airspace incursion by a Thai military aircraft which reportedly flew 400 metres inside Cambodian territory.
The Thai official also stated that the Dec 27 GBC joint statement agreed to allow both sides to maintain their current troop positions, without moving or patrolling into the other side’s territory, and that Thailand followed that framework.
But Cambodia saw Thai military actions, such as destroying civilian homes and building solid infrastructure, as an attempt to claim legality of territorial occupation via “ceasefire”.
"Ceasefires do not grant sovereignty. The Thai Senate Advisory Commission inappropriately cited the Joint Statement of the 3rd Special Session of the General Border Committee (GBC) dated December 27, 2025, to justify Thailand’s current troop positions.
"As a matter of fact, a temporary ceasefire framework cannot be selectively exploited to legitimise an unlawful military occupation, create new territorial rights, or consolidate a unilateral fait accompli on the ground," Yiseang said, in his statement.
He also raised Thailand’s violation of bilateral frameworks, noting that boundary lines in disputed or un-surveyed zones must be settled strictly through established bilateral treaties and peaceful diplomatic mechanisms, not by maintaining forward military aggression.
Inna also accused Cambodia of firing first, kicking off last year’s fighting. He claimed to have evidence, although he didn’t present it.
Although the Thai military declared the “Chakrabongse Bhuvanath” military strategy on July 23, a day prior to the first round of fighting broke out, Inna claimed that Thai had acted in self-defence.
Yiseang responded by saying that Thailand has made unsubstantiated claims. He added that such claims were intended “to conceal its own acts of unprovoked and continuous aggression”.
“Furthermore, Thailand has used transnational crime and ‘online scams’ as a geopolitical pretext to deploy military force, violate Cambodia’s airspace, and encroach upon its sovereign territory,” he noted.
He stated that Cambodia maintains a “steadfast commitment” to international humanitarian law.
Rather than accepting Thailand’s unilateral and unsubstantiated claims as both claimant and judge, he noted that Cambodia has called for an independent, internationally verified forensic assessment to expose which side fired first and targeted civilian communities.
The current war of words also referenced the status of the almost 20,000 Cambodian civilians who remain displaced by the conflict and are currently living in temporary shelters, including the so-called “Waiting Village”.
Inna attempted to claim humanitarian credit for providing shelter to Cambodians who fled the wars of the 1970s.
He claimed that the Cambodian villages of Chouk Chey and Prey Chan as well as the Boeung Trakuon area are historically Thai, calling the Cambodian residents “encroachers”.
The three areas have now been cleared by Thai bulldozers, according to authorities and reports by local rights group Licadho.
Yiseang described Inna’s use of the term “encroachers” for the displaced civilians as “cruel rhetoric”.
He noted that the Cambodian civilians who lost their homes in the occupied areas are by definition internally displaced persons (IDPs), not encroachers as Thai claimed.
He added that Inna has misused data from the 1979 UNBRO to distort historical facts.
"Under international law, they maintain an unassailable right to return safely and with dignity to their lands and homes, many of which were destroyed by Thai attacks.
"Thailand must immediately cease its predatory “salami-slicing strategy” which seeks to incrementally seize Cambodian land through unauthorised patrols and forced civilian displacement and pull its troops back," the Cambodian senator.
Hitting back at what Inna called Cambodian attempts to internationalise the border issue, especially at the recent ISC-2 summit, Yiseang noted that the use of regional and international parliamentary forums is a peaceful, transparent and legitimate diplomatic mechanism.
“It is our duty to inform the international community of the facts on the ground,” he said.
He urged Thailand to stop using “selectively interpreted frameworks, obstructing impartial procedures and escalating tensions on the ground”.
“Lasting peace can only be achieved when Thailand matches its calls for dialogue with an absolute respect for international law and the historical boundaries inherited under the Franco-Siamese Convention of 1904 and the Franco-Siamese Treaty of 1907,” he said.
“It is our duty to ensure that international parliamentary bodies receive an accurate, legally grounded account of these developments to prevent misinformation from clouding the path toward a just and lasting bilateral solution and peace,” he added. - The Phnom Penh Post/ANN
