Thai, Malaysia PMs agree to better unite terror fight

By CS Thana and Max Constant

BANGKOK (AA) - The leaders of Malaysia and Thailand agreed Friday to greater cooperation in the fight against terrorism, and the possibility of building a wall along their 640-kilometer (400-mile) shared border.

The porous boundary has long been a passage for people smugglers wanting to move Muslim Rohingya and Uighur fleeing alleged persecution in their home countries to Malaysia and beyond, and for militants connected to Thailand’s insurgency looking for a place to hide out.

The agreement came as Najib Razak of Malaysia -- on the first day of a six-day official visit to Thailand -- and Prayuth Chan-Ocha met in Bangkok for an annual high-level bilateral meeting.

"Cross border terrorism is a concern for both our countries and on this matter we have agreed on increased intelligence sharing and closer cooperation," Razak said after talks were held.

He added that both sides will look into the construction, feasibility and sharing of costs in building the wall.

Thai officials said before the meeting that the wall would help in the fight against separatist insurgents operating in Thailand who use Malaysia as a base of operations.

Malaysia has been playing the role of facilitator in peace talks between the Thai junta -- who seized power in May 2014 -- and an umbrella organization, called Mara Patani.

The organization claims to represent separatist movements and insurgent groups currently active on the ground in the three southern province of Yala, Pattani and Narathiwat as well as in several districts of Songkla in Thailand’s south.

On Friday, Razak reaffirmed Malaysia's readiness to continue facilitating the talks, the latest round of which ended with no agreement last month.

Chan-Ocha added that the two governments would look into constructing additional border crossings between the two countries to help trade and crack down on the illegal smuggling of goods and people.

Earlier Friday, Razak extolled the Thai-Malaysian cooperation in the fight against terrorism and stated that Malaysia was ready to help Thailand achieve peace in the Muslim majority Thai south, plagued by a long-running insurgency.

“The collaboration between our security services has been essential to the safety of our peoples and is an example of what our two countries can achieve together”, wrote Razak in a column published in the Bangkok Post.

After highlighting a series of bombings, which killed four people in the upper Thai south Aug. 11 and 12 and a Daesh-linked grenade attack in a bar in Kuala Lumpur in June, Razak commended the work of the “brave police and armed forces in Malaysia and Thailand”.

Their “work is often conducted behind the scenes, without any credit being given to those on the front line,” he added.

He also evoked “the role Malaysia stands ready to play in helping the Thai government achieve peace in southern Thailand”.

“This is a major responsibility and one we take very seriously,” he wrote, and then slammed foreign critics for interfering in both countries affairs.

“There are some who have accused Thailand and Malaysia, and others in the region, of using the threat of terrorism as a pretext to introduce [security] legislation,” he said.

“Many of those hail not from our countries or even our region” and commit “foreign interference”, he wrote.

“The days of old powers coercing developing countries into doing what they want are over."