Displaying items by tag: international diplomacy

Cambodia and Thailand have convened a two-day Joint Border Committee (JBC) meeting in Chanthaburi province to advance long-stalled talks on their shared frontier. The session follows June’s historic JBC meeting in Phnom Penh — the first in over a decade — which helped revive bilateral dialogue after tensions briefly escalated into armed confrontation between border troops. The agenda includes reviewing progress on boundary demarcation, addressing issues raised at September’s General Border Committee meeting, and approving the use of new mapping technologies such as LiDAR and orthophotography to speed up surveying along the 800-kilometre border. Cambodia’s delegation, led by Lam Chea of the State Secretariat of Border Affairs, and Thailand’s, headed by Prasas Prasasvinitchai, aim to confirm additional boundary pillars and strengthen cooperation under the 2000 Memorandum of Understanding. Phnom Penh reaffirmed that disputed zones like Ta Moan Thom and the Emerald Triangle should be settled through international legal channels, not unilateral mapping. Both sides expressed hope that continued dialogue will prevent renewed conflict and foster stability.

On 10 March Boris Johnson phoned Iran’s president, Hassan Rouhani, to tell him the British-Iranian aid worker Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe must be allowed to return home to be with her family as she finished her five year prison sentence on 7 March. He said that while the removal of her ankle monitor was welcome, her continued confinement remains completely unacceptable. Rouhani complained to Johnson that no practical progress had been made in solving Iran’s demand for the UK to return a £400m debt. Nazanin now faces a new court date. Shadow foreign secretary Lisa Nandy said, ‘When I meet this family I feel there's not much more they can take of this, to be honest. Other countries have made more progress in getting their nationals home. We need to see a real concerted effort now.’ See