Anand separately met Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi and former prime minister Mahathir Mohamad in Kuala Lumpur.

“We had frank and open discussions about the violence in the South. Dr Mahathir assured me that his country had never backed insurgents or the [now defunct] Pattani United Liberation Organisation,” Anand said.

The assurance was, he said, credible inasmuch as no country wished problems on a neighbour involving fighting in its own vicinity.

Malaysian officials told Anand that although the violence in the south had caused misunderstanding between Thailand and Malaysia, the two sides should continue to talk and try to resolve the misunderstanding.

Anand, a former premier, did not say when he had met the Malaysian leaders but said he would inform Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra of the details of the discussions.

Meanwhile Malaysia’s foreign minister, whose comments on 131 Thai Muslims who fled to Malaysia drew protest from Bangkok, has suggested the countries hold talks to avoid any further misunderstanding.

“It is best for both sides to keep talking until the issue is resolved,” Syed Hamid Albar was quoted as saying in the New Straits Times newspaper.

The Thai Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Friday summoned Malaysian Ambassador Shaarani Ibrahim to protest against Syed Hamid’s comments that Malaysia would only return the 131 Thai Muslims, who reportedly fled violence in Thailand, if Bangkok could guarantee their human rights.

Bangkok said it considered the comments “interference in the internal affairs” of Thailand.

Syed Hamid told the paper that Malaysia had no desire to interfere in Thailand’s affairs and “would only react when neighbouring countries’ affairs affect Malaysia”.

He made no direct reference to the 131 asylum-seekers but said he was confident that Thailand would do whatever necessary to protect its people.

“We are sure that the Thai authorities are doing their best to deal with matters within their country,” he said. “We will deal with matters within our country.”

The group of 131 people crossed into Malaysia in late August, reportedly fearing persecution by Thai security forces fighting insurgency in the restive South.

However, Thai officials claim that militants manipulated the asylum-seekers into crossing the border as a political manoeuvre and that at least one of the 131 is an insurgent trying to escape arrest.

Thailand has said it is not happy that Malaysia allowed the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) to interview the group, who were detained in Kelantan state. Malaysia recently moved the group to Terengganu state without prior notification of Thai authorities.

Anand, also a former ambassador, said it was the UNHCR’s duty to investigate the problem and to provide protection to people who had fled to another country.

“I don’t think that the UNHCR’s role in the matter was interference in [Thailand’s] internal affairs,” he said.

The PM’s advisor, Wan Mohammad Noor Matha, will meet Badawi in Terengganu on October 17 to talk about the future of the 131 Thai Muslims.

Wan Noor’s advisor, Suthiphan Sririkanon, said Wan Noor had been invited by Terengganu’s leader to meet Abdullah at a dinner to follow the day’s Ramadan fasting. It is hoped that the meeting will help heal the conflicts arising from the issue, he said.

Meanwhile Thaksin said in his weekly radio programme that many Muslims in the deep South were not cooperating with government efforts to hunt down rebels and quell a bloody insurgency in southern Thailand.

“I discovered that there was a low level of cooperation among Muslims in the South because villagers were frightened. That is because insurgents are living together with them in the villages,” Thaksin said.

He said he had discovered this during his visit to the South on Thursday and Friday.

Violence continued yesterday, as two people were shot to death in Pattani’s Yarang district as they were going home after selling vegetables.

Thanong Chumanee, 48, and his wife Supaporn, 46, were heading home along the Pattani-Yala road when two men on a motorcycle approached them from behind and shot them, killing them instantly.

The killers left a note near the bodies, saying the two had been killed in retaliation for recent arrests of suspects in the beating deaths of two marines last month.

Earlier, in Narathiwat’s Sungai Padi district, Mahamaroe Da-oh, 40, a village defence volunteer, was killed by two gunmen on a motorcycle. Police said he had been erecting fences when the gunmen shot him from behind.

Mahamaroe was rushed to a hospital nearby, where he was pronounced dead.

The Nation, Agencies