The Cambodia-Laos border security cooperation committees held a May 2 virtual meeting to promote cooperation in maintaining border security and agreed on a number of issues relating to stability, better security and peaceful borders.
Ith Sarath, chairman of the Cambodia-Laos border security cooperation committee, said at the meeting that cooperation was important for both sides.
He said this was the second meeting between the committees of the two nations. It was also the first opportunity for the chairman of the Lao side to get to know his Cambodian counterpart. He believed that the two armies would implement the recommendations of their respective prime ministers.
“The purpose of today’s meeting is to build our communication and promote security along the border, as well as to continue our long traditional cooperation of living in harmony with each other as good neighbours,” he added.
Sarath said that at the first meeting, the two committees had set an annual meeting schedule, but previous meetings had been unable to take place due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Now that Cambodia had brought the pandemic under control and reopened in all sectors, the meeting could finally go ahead.
He said the two sides agreed on three main points. The first was acknowledging that both nations have the will to make their borders peaceful – in the spirit of friendship, solidarity, cooperation and development – as desired by the leaders of both countries.
The second was to promote relations between the militaries of both nations, by establishing sport, art and entertainment links with each other. The third was their desire to continue working on the shared mechanisms that were laid out at the first meeting.
Sarath’s counterpart Vanthorn Buttakvong said the Lao side agreed with the outcomes of the meeting and requested that the Cambodian side continue discussions at an in-person meeting hosted by Laos, and jointly resolve all possible challenges by peaceful means.
The security committees were established by the leaders of the two countries’ defence ministries at a Defence Ministerial Meeting on December 12, 2019 in the Vietnamese capital Hanoi. The committees aim to promote cross-border relations between the two armies.
The committees were tasked with guaranteeing peace, stability and harmony to the people living along the borders, and to make it possible for specialist institutions to cooperate in preventing crime and promoting economic development.
