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ASEAN Beat | Diplomacy | Southeast Asia

Thai Navy Seizes Cambodian Fishing Boat in Disputed Waters

Phnom Penh denounced the capture of the vessel and its crew as “an unauthorized incursion” into Cambodian territorial waters.

Thailand’s Navy yesterday seized a Cambodian fishing boat that it said was operating in Thai territorial waters, prompting an angry protest from Phnom Penh and adding additional strain to the two nations’ tense relationship.

The First Naval Area Command said that the boat was intercepted and confiscated at 10 a.m. at latitude 11°31.51’ North and longitude 102°53.40’ East, Khaosod English reported.

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Thailand’s Navy yesterday seized a Cambodian fishing boat that it said was operating in Thai territorial waters, prompting an angry protest from Phnom Penh and adding additional strain to the two nations’ tense relationship.

The First Naval Area Command said that the boat was intercepted and confiscated at 10 a.m. at latitude 11°31.51’ North and longitude 102°53.40’ East, Khaosod English reported.

The Navy also detained three Cambodian crew members “who were unable to communicate in Thai and had no identification documents or lawful vessel entry/exit paperwork,” according to a report by The Nation. The crew admitted they had been fishing in Thai waters for two days, it added. Both they and the vessel were then taken to a port in Trat province for processing.

The Cambodian Ministry of Foreign Affairs swiftly issued a statement protesting what it described as “an unauthorized incursion” into Cambodian waters, stating that the seizure took place “approximately 7.2 nautical miles from Koh Yor, in Koh Kong province” – i.e., within Cambodia’s territorial waters. “These actions constitute a clear violation of Cambodia’s sovereignty and territorial waters, as well as international law,” it stated.

The Ministry called on Thailand to release the detained fishermen and return their vessel immediately. It also urged it to cease all unauthorized naval patrols and law enforcement activities within Cambodian waters, and take measures to prevent similar incidents from recurring.

Such a seizure would usually be a minor incident, but it takes on additional significance in the context of the ongoing border dispute between the two neighbors, which erupted into conflict in July and December of last year.

The conflict has led to prolonged border closures and the militarization of large parts of both the 817-kilometer land frontier and the disputed maritime border in the Gulf of Thailand. Worse, the seizure reflects the collapse of any consensus on where the two nations’ border lies, how it is to be determined, and the measures by which it can be demarcated fairly.

The Thailand-Cambodia border was set by a treaty signed between Siam and French Indochina in 1907, but demarcation works were left incomplete in certain areas. In others, Thailand claims that maps subsequently created by French surveyors deviated from the terms of the treaty. While Bangkok and Phnom Penh signed MoUs in 2000 and 2001 that created bilateral mechanisms by which these issues can be addressed, they rely on a degree of comity and trust that is currently in very short supply.

Thai Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul’s government is also under pressure from Thai conservatives to annul the MoUs, and has promised to do so in the case of the 2001 agreement.

While the two nations agreed to a ceasefire in late December, this left Thai forces in control of small but strategically and symbolically significant territories along the border. Cambodia’s government has issued numerous protests about this in recent weeks, and its inability to accept permanent territorial losses suggests that a degree of tension and the possibility of a return to active warfare will persist. Anutin’s ascendant conservative Thai government, fresh from a significant election victory on February 8, has little incentive to hand back these territories absent Cambodian compromises elsewhere.

Yesterday’s boat seizure also suggests that there is a possibility of the conflict also erupting over the two nations’ maritime border, which has remained mostly peaceful. All told, the conflict that burst forth in 2025 is likely to poison the relations between Thailand and Cambodia for many years to come.

Sebastian Strangio is Southeast Asia editor at The Diplomat. 

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