Thai junta rejects conditional peace talks with Muslim insurgents
Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha rejected the offer and said peace talks were an internal matter and required no international mediation or observation
Thailand’s military junta on Tuesday rejected a conditional offer from the main Muslim separatist group fighting in southern Thailand to enter into formal peace talks.
The Barisan Revolusi Nasional (BRN) said on Monday that it would be willing to enter into formal negotiations on the decades-old insurgency if certain conditions were met by the Thai government.
Among its demands were mediation by a neutral third party and the participation of international observers.
Why do they need to come mediate? Can we not fix these problems ourselves? And if they do come what guarantees do we have that they would understand the issues?”
Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha rejected the offer and said peace talks were an internal matter and required no international mediation or observation.
“Why do they need to come mediate? Can we not fix these problems ourselves? And if they do come what guarantees do we have that they would understand the issues?” Prayuth said.
The insurgency in the largely ethnic-Malay, Muslim-majority southern provinces of Yala, Pattani and Narathiwat has claimed more than 6,500 lives since it escalated in 2004, says independent monitoring group Deep South Watch.