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The Straits Times (5 June 2026)

Thailand will appoint two conciliators and join a little-used UN arbitration process that Cambodia has invoked to help resolve a long-running maritime boundary dispute between the neighbours, Thai Foreign Minister Sihasak Phuangketkeow said on June 5.

Cambodia said on June 2 that it had launched a compulsory conciliation process under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), following Bangkok’s decision in May to unilaterally terminate a 2001 bilateral agreement that provided a framework for talks over a disputed maritime belt.

For more than 25 years, Cambodia and Thailand have both laid claim to about 26,000 sq km of sea in the Gulf of Thailand, an area estimated to hold nearly 339 billion cubic m of natural gas and large quantities of oil, together valued at about US$300 billion (S$385 billion).

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