The Prime Minister of Cambodia and Laos plan to ask the French government for a map to address the remaining border issues.
On 1 September 2017, Prime Minister of Laos, Thong Leone Sisolit and Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen met at the Peace Palace in Phnom Penh. This is the second round of talks since the two leaders met in Vientiane, Lao PDR on 12 August 2017, as a confrontation between the armed forces in the border region. At a press conference on Friday, Prime Minister Hun Sen said the Cambodian and Lao foreign ministers will discuss plans for future talks to request a border map from the French government. He said the two prime ministers would send a letter to the French President to help transfer the map from 1 to 100 thousand to 1 in 50 thousand to end the remaining border issue. Hun Sen said that the demarcation of the two countries would not be able to use one-thousandth map, and that France should provide experts to help solve the problem because France was a former colony in Indochina. "Both sides, both Prime Ministers, HE Thong Lon and I, will write a letter to the French president to help transfer France's map from 1 to 100 thousand to 1 in 50 thousand and ask the French to provide other documents relating to the Cambodian-Lao border," he said. Additionally, Hun Sen claimed that the two countries agreed to allow the Border Committee to directly settle in Ota Namavao, Stung Treng province's Siem Pang district and agree on some of the points proposed by Cambodia. Lao Prime Minister Thong Lun said he fully supports the government's proposal that the two countries will work together to end the border issue. "I would like to congratulate him on what he said all the time, the next problem, we have to wait for the two foreign ministers to meet, and I agree on the point where the prince said that both of us would write to the French president to request a transfer." Political science professor Em Sovannara applauded the government's efforts, saying that maps and experts from France could help in delimitizing the Cambodian-Lao border and minimizing disputes between the two countries. But he said that the French map proposal appears to be slower if the government wants to end the border issue ahead of elections next year. According to Cambodian and Lao border officials, there are 540 kilometers of borderline borders, with around 145 border markers being demarcated. But so far, both sides have issued 121 ballots, equal to 83% remaining, about 24 posts, while the remaining points are in Preah Vihear and Stung Treng provinces.
