Meas Sokchea

Royal Academy of Cambodia academic Sok Touch is today set to inspect the Three Stones Village, following reports that Vietnam had claimed two of the boulders which give the remote border community in Takeo province its name.

Touch, who leads the academy’s border research team, commissioned by the government to probe the accuracy of the ongoing demarcation process, said the village, named Thmor Bey Dom in Khmer and located in Borei Cholsar district’s Kampong Krasaing commune, was on the borderline, according to the constitutionally recognised colonial maps.

“I must go to see whether Thmor Bey Dom has lost [land],” Touch said, citing rumours that two of three stones were now considered Vietnamese territory.

read more: http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/border-researcher-touch-visit-takeos-three-stones

Three Stones border row unfounded, says Touch

Thu, 11 February 2016

Meas Sokchea

The Royal Academy’s head border researcher Sok Touch yesterday dismissed claims that Vietnam had encroached into Cambodia’s Three Stones village along the border in Takeo province after inspecting the site.

Touch visited the area after rumours that Vietnam had claimed two of the three “famous” stones that give the village in Borei Cholsar district its name.

Yesterday, he noted Cambodia’s police checkpoint was only 25 metres from the site while the Vietnamese outpost was about 200 metres away, adding there was no evidence Vietnam had impeded access or was farming there. He labelled the rumours political troublemaking.

“The Vietnamese do not know [that location is meaningful]. But journalists and politicians always prod this topic to make it meaningful,” he said.

read more: http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/three-stones-border-row-unfounded-says-touch