Thailand announces peace talks with southern Muslim rebels

Thailand’s military government has announced peace talks can go ahead with Muslim separatists in the far south of the country but insisted they observe a ceasefire.

Separatists from the far south Muslim-majority provinces of Yala, Pattani and Narathiwat are suspected of involvement in a string of bombings last month in several tourist towns that killed four people and wounded dozens.

A decades-old insurgency in the deep south of predominately Buddhist Thailand flared in 2004 and more than 6,500 people have been killed since then, according to the independent monitoring group Deep South Watch.

Talks between the government and insurgents began in 2013 when Yingluck Shinawatra was prime minister of a civilian government but have stalled since the military threw her out of office in 2014.

The Thai defence minister, Prawit Wongsuwan, said negotiations would restart on Friday in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

General Aksara Kerdphol, the Thai government’s lead negotiator, said the rebels had to show good faith by ending violence.

Read More- The Guardian

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