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BANGKOK: Thailand's prime minister backed on Tuesday a suggestion by his Malaysian counterpart to grant autonomy to the insurgency-hit Thai south, as five more people were killed in the Muslim-majority region.
Abhisit Vejjajiva said he would discuss the plan for the restive southern provinces on the Malaysian border when Malaysia's Prime Minister Najib Razak visits Thailand in December.
Razak said in a newspaper interview published on Monday 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.
In response, Abhisit told reporters: "That's the right approach. My government is working to make it materialise and in early December I and my Malaysian counterpart will visit the southern region".
Malaysia's Razak told Thai English-language daily The Nation that "you may not want to call it autonomy, but there could at least be some form of involvement".
"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," he was quoted as saying.
The region was an autonomous Malay Muslim sultanate until 1902 when it was annexed by mainly Buddhist Thailand, sparking decades of tension that spiralled into a full insurgency five years ago.
Thai government spokesman Panitan Wattanayagorn said the Malaysian premier had admitted the southern violence was a "totally Thai domestic affair" and had vowed to cooperate with Thailand to solve the problem.
"Thailand is supporting this approach but it's not an independent region. It does not contradict the constitution, but instead allows more public participation in the form of a local assembly," he told reporters.
Suspected militants travelling on motorbikes killed two Buddhist villagers in a drive-by shooting in the southern province of Pattani on Monday while a Muslim man died in a separate shooting, police said.
Also in Pattani, a 29-year-old militant and a border patrol police officer were killed in a gunfight late Monday, in which another policeman was wounded.
A soldier was wounded when a bomb hidden under a railway track in neighbouring Yala province was detonated by remote control on Tuesday morning as services were due to resume after a strike, police said.
The shadowy insurgents in the region target civilians and security forces, both Buddhists and Muslims. Around 60,000 Thai troops are now stationed in the area.
- AFP/so
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