The Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva has backed a proposal from Malaysia to grant greater autonomy to the troubled south of the country. The comments came as five people were killed in three separate violent incidents in the Muslim-majority region.
Abhisit said he would discuss the plan for the southern provinces on the Malaysian border when Malaysia's Prime Minister Najib Razak visits Thailand in December.
Razak told Thai English-language daily The Nation that Thailand should offer "some form" of autonomy to the region, where more than 3,900 people have been killed since separatist violence erupted in January 2004.
"You may not want to call it autonomy but there could at least be some form of Involvement," he said.
"It is Thailand’s decision to consider how far such autonomy in the deep south should go, and Malaysia, as a neighbour, would not intervene in the matter."
Abhisit responded positively to Razak’s comments.
"That's the right approach,” he said.
"My government is working to make it materialise and in early December I and my Malaysian counterpart will visit the southern region."
The region was an autonomous Malay Muslim sultanate until 1902 when it was annexed by mainly Buddhist Thailand. Decades of tension spiralled into a full insurgency five years ago.
The latest violence came in Pattani province where police said that two Buddhist villagers, aged 19 and 46, were killed in a drive-by shooting on Monday afternoon by four militants travelling on two motorbikes.
Later on Monday, a 29-year-old militant and a border patrol police officer were killed in a gunfight in Pattani with another policeman wounded.
In a separate incident in the same province late on Monday, police said a 23-year-old Muslim villager was shot and killed by suspected rebels while he was travelling by motorcycle.
In Yala province, a bomb buried under the road near the railway in Raman district exploded early on Tuesday, injuring one ranger badly while he was on patrol.
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