BANGKOK, December 8. /TASS/. The Thai armed forces have initiated an operation to reclaim sovereign territory in the country’s Sa Kaeo Province along the Cambodian border, Thailand’s First Army Area said in a statement.

"The Burapha task force carried out an operation to reclaim sovereign Thai territory in the Sa Kaeo Province. The operations center of the First Army Area received a report from the Burapha task force of rising tensions along the Thai-Cambodian border. It was established that Cambodian forces along the border in the Sa Kaeo Province had raised their combat readiness to the highest level. A continuous movement of troops, military equipment, and heavy weapons to fortified positions was recorded. <...> Such actions run counter to agreements between Thailand and Cambodia. In this regard, the First Army Area, on behalf of the Burapha task force, launched military operations to reclaim Thailand’s sovereign territory along the border in the Sa Kaeo Province," the statement reads.

Earlier, the Thai Foreign Ministry called on Cambodia to stop expanding settlements and seizing Thailand’s sovereign territory in the Sa Kaeo Province, and demanded that Cambodian citizens be removed from the area.

There is a Cambodian settlement in the village of Ban Nong Chan in the Thai province of Sa Kaeo. About 13,000 refugees lived there during the Cambodian-Vietnamese War in 1979 and decided to stay after the conflict ended, as the government encouraged their integration at the time. Later, Cambodia laid claims on the territory.