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| Southeast Asia |
| Malaysia offers to help Thai Muslims |
| 2008-02-11 |
| Malaysia has offered to work with Thailand’s new government to aid Muslims in the restive south, which has been wracked by an insurgency for more than four years, state media reported Sunday. It's the nature of the "aid" you've been sending to the south that's part of the problem. Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi said he looked forward to meeting his new Thai counterpart Samak Sundaravej to discuss how to help locals and restore peace to the area, which he said would benefit both countries. “We have expressed our willingness to cooperate with Thailand to help the Muslims in the south,” along the border with Malaysia, Abdullah was quoted as saying by Bernama news agency. “I want to discuss this with the new Thai prime minister. I think it is a good thing that we give attention to the situation in southern Thailand.” More than 2,900 people have been killed since the unrest broke out in January 2004 in the south, which was an autonomous Malay Muslim sultanate until mainly Buddhist Thailand annexed it in 1902, provoking decades of tension. |
| Posted by:Fred |