  We consider the light-quark axial-vector current correlator in the framework
of thermal QCD sum rules to: (a) find a relation between chiral-symmetry
restoration and deconfinement, and (b) determine the temperature behaviour of
the $a_1(1260)$ width and coupling. Our results show that deconfinement takes
place at a slightly lower temperature than chiral-symmetry restoration.This
difference is not significant given the accuracy of the method. The behaviour
of the $a_1(1260)$ parameters is consistent with quark-gluon deconfinement,
since the width grows and the coupling decreases with increasing temperature.
