Truce Takes Effect in Thai-Laotian Border Dispute

BANGKOK, Thailand — A cease-fire between Laotian and Thai troops took effect Friday, although Laos accused Thailand of last-minute fighting to secure an advantage when the shooting stopped in their border dispute.

Talks earlier this week between Thai and Laotian military leaders, aimed at ending three months of fighting over a 27-square-mile strip of border hills, 270 miles north of Bangkok, resulted in a four-point cease-fire agreement on the removal within 48 hours of troops to 2 miles from the battle line .

The border between Communist Laos and Western-supported Thailand shifted for hundreds of years but began to solidify during France’s colonization of Indochina.

The latest border dispute resulted from differing interpretations of a 1907 French treaty defining Thailand’s border with Laos, which was then a French colony.