Vietnam-Cambodia border topographic maps to be sent to UN

Senior Minister Var Kimhong speaks at the ceremony at Peace Palace. Photo: Khmer Times

Phnom Penh – Cambodian border affairs committee chairman Var Kimhong said the government will send newly-drawn Vietnam-Cambodia border topographic maps to the UN for international recognition.

Speaking at the ceremony to hand over the maps to 35 Cambodian ministries and state institutions at the Peace Palace, Phnom Penh on August 27, Var Kimhong considered the border topographic maps scaled at 1:25,000 as a “historic achievement” for Cambodia.

“We plan to send the topographic maps to be kept at the United Nations,” he was quoted by Khmer Times as saying, adding that the Cambodian government will negotiate with Vietnam to demarcate the remaining 16 percent of the border.

The map represented 84 percent of border demarcation work completed between the two nations which have been implemented since 2006.

Kimhong said the maps were made based on the original maps of 1:100,000 scale produced during the French colonial era.

The handover ceremony took place under the presidency of Samdech Pichey Sena Tea Banh, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of National Defence.

The map is an indispensable appendix to the Vietnam-Cambodia land border demarcation protocol signed on October 5, 2019, and the supplementary treaty to the 1985 Treaty on the Delimitation of National Boundaries and the 2005 Supplementary Treaty.

On August 1, Vietnamese and Cambodian officials exchanged border topographic maps at 1:25,000 scale at Moc Bai international border gate in Vietnam’s southern province of Tay Ninh.

The Vietnamese delegation was led by Le Hoai Trung, Deputy Foreign Minister and Chairman of the Vietnam-Cambodia Joint Committee on Border Demarcation and Marker Planting, while the Cambodian delegation was headed by Var Kim Hong.

The two sides examined and agreed on all 500 sets of border topographic maps, including 250 in Vietnamese-Khmer languages and 250 others in Khmer-Vietnamese languages, with signatures of the two countries’ relevant authorities. Each side keeps 250 sets.

The event laid an important foundation for both sides to hold a ceremony to exchange a document approving the validity of the supplementary treaty to the 1985 Treaty on the Delimitation of National Boundaries and the 2005 Supplementary Treaty, and the Vietnam-Cambodia land border demarcation protocol.

Both sides agreed to inform each other of the schedule for the ceremony via diplomatic channels, after the two Governments end measures to prevent the spread of COVID-19.

Prime Minister Samdech Techo Hun Sen and his Vietnamese counterpart Nguyen Xuan Phuc signed an acknowledgement of both countries’ border marker planting, which achieved 84 percent, in Hanoi on October 5, 2019.

Cambodia and Vietnam share a border of 1,270 kilometres.