Malaysia cooperates with Thailand on south issues
Play
Malaysia is willing to cooperate with Thailand to bring peace to the country's southernmost provinces, Thai Foreign Minister Surapong Tovichakchaikul said Thursday.
The minister was speaking after meeting with his Malaysian counterpart, Datuk Anifah bin Haji Aman, on the sidelines of the 66 th UN General Assembly in New York.
Surapong thanked the Malaysian government for its good cooperation with Thailand in handling the violence in the three southern provinces of Narathiwat, Pattani and Yala.
The Malaysian minister asserted that the problem was Thailand's internal affair and that it did not want to intervene. Malaysia, however, stands ready to cooperate with Thailand to return peace to the border region as it neither wants to see the problem intensify nor innocent people, whether Thai or Malaysian, lose their lives.
The Thai foreign minister said he expressed condolences to the Malaysian minister over the deaths of four Malaysians in last week's multiple bombings in Narathiwat.
The four Malaysian tourists were among five persons killed and more than 100 wounded in the bombings in Su-ngai Kolok district last Friday.
Surapong said he told his Malaysian counterpart that Thailand is ready to host the 12th Thai Malaysian Joint Cooperation and the 3rd Thailand-Malaysia Committee on Joint Development Strategy for Border Areas (JDS) scheduled for later this year.
Both meetings would be in preparation for the 5th annual meeting of Thai and Malaysian leaders, which Malaysia would host.
Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra is scheduled to visit Malaysia on Oct 3.
Surapong also took the opportunity of the UN General Assembly to meet Executive Director Yury Fedotov of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) who has praised Thailand for the Enhancing Lives of Female Inmates (ELFI) project under the guidance of HRH Princess Bajara Kitiyabha.
The project was a key driver in the adoption of the United Nations Rules for the Treatment of Women Prisoners and Non-custodial Measures for Women Offenders in December 2010, frequently referred to as the "Bangkok Rules".
Surapong told Fedotov that Thailand is cracking down on illicit drugs with the intention of eradicating the problem as far as possible, or around 80 per cent within one year.
Fedotov accepted Surapong's invitation to visit Thailand to meet with the kingdom's drug-busting agencies.
