(REUTERS) — Cambodia’s minister in charge of border issues, Va Kimhong, and his Vietnamese counterpart Le Hoai Trung, led delegations for talks aimed at resolving their outstanding border disputes on Monday (August 29) at the Council of Ministers building in Phnom Penh.
Committees from the two countries are considering a draft agreement approved by their respective prime ministers.
The agreement includes a request to in which they have agreed to ask France for help to map the border after reports that Vietnam has dug ponds and built a military outpost on the Cambodian side.
The border between the two countries was established using French colonial maps and the Cambodian constitution.
The two countries plan to establish 317 markers by the end of the year and and then plan to start talks on their sea border. Cambodia has spent more than $16 million to make the markers but has yet to create transport routes to where many of these markers are located.
The opposition party has urged the government to stop the border demarcation process until after the next general election in 2018, saying that Cambodia has lost a large area of its land border to Vietnam.
Senate member Hong Sok Hour and lawmaker Um Sam An from the opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) have been jailed for speaking about Vietnamese border encroachment earlier this year.