Cambodia 'retaliated' in border clashes with Thailand: ex-PM

Cambodia's influential former leader, Hun Sen, said on Tuesday that his country had retaliated in the reignited border clashes with its neighbour, Thailand, after Phnom Penh denied firing back for two days.

"After being patient for more than 24 hours to respect the ceasefire and for time to evacuate people to safety, yesterday evening we retaliated with more (responses) last night and this morning," Senate president and former prime minister Hun Sen said in a Facebook post.

"Our forces must fight at all points that the enemy has attacked," he said, while telling troops to "implement the strategy to destroy the enemy forces".

"Now we fight to defend ourselves again," he added.

Five days of combat this summer between the two Southeast Asian nations killed 43 people and displaced around 300,000 on both sides of the border before a truce took effect.

Renewed combat this week has killed six Cambodian civilians and a Thai soldier, and wounded more than 20 others.

The two countries have blamed each other for the fresh fighting, which saw Thailand launch air strikes and use tanks against its neighbour on Monday.

Cambodia's Defence Ministry spokeswoman, Maly Socheata, had maintained on Monday that Cambodian forces had not retaliated against Thai attacks.

Cambodia's PM calls for peaceful resolution

Meanwhile, Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet urged Thailand on Monday to peacefully resolve the border dispute between the two countries.

"If Thailand truly loves peace and values its land as Cambodia does, then the Thai government and military should adhere to the peaceful settlement of border issues using agreed mechanisms and currently being implemented by both sides," Manet said, according to the state-run news agency Agence Kampuchea Presse.

The remarks came following clashes after Thailand accused Cambodia of border attacks, which left one Thai soldier dead and four others injured, threatening a fragile ceasefire agreement brokered in late July by US President Donald Trump, with an expanded declaration signed by the two countries in late October at the ASEAN Summit in Kuala Lumpur, which Trump witnessed.

"I sincerely hope that the Thai side, which has always proclaimed itself a peace-loving country that respects international law, will continue to use peaceful and lawful means in conducting the survey and demarcation of the land boundary to determine the sovereignty of each country," he said.

The dispute between the two neighbours escalated into deadly clashes in July, displacing thousands of people.

Cambodia and Thailand signed a ceasefire deal in Kuala Lumpur on October 26 on the sidelines of the ASEAN Summit, witnessed by Trump and Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim, who helped broker the ceasefire, in a bid to resolve their longstanding border dispute.