Minister in Charge of Border Affairs Var Kimhong yesterday moved to quash the latest outbreak of rumours that National Assembly President Heng Samrin’s native village of Thlok Trach would be given to Vietnam in a land swap.

Kimhong said there were no plans to exchange the border village in Tbong Khmum’s Kak commune as part of ongoing demarcation of the eastern boundary with Vietnam, as was rumoured online.

He said the joint Cambodia-Vietnam border working group would resume discussions on November 4, adding that the demarcation was about 83 percent complete.

Cambodia identifies its borders as those drawn in French colonial maps, but differences between the early 20th-century charts and the situation on the ground have yet to be worked out between the neighbours.

In 2012, Thlok Trach and nearby Anlung Chrey village were thrust to the centre of the long-running controversy over the eastern border after an official announced that in order to keep them within Cambodia, authorities would have to swap two still-unnamed villages with Vietnam.