KOTA BARU: A Thai Muslim council body said it is confident Malaysia can make the peace negotiations in southern Thailand a success.
Narathiwat Islamic Religious Council deputy president Abdul Aziz Che Mamat believes the Malaysian government's new chief facilitator for the peace dialogue, Tan Sri Zulkifli Zainal Abidin, is the right person for the job.
"We (the Narathiwat Islamic Religious Council committee members) can see the efforts made by Tan Sri Zulkifli to ensure the success of the peace talks.
"His willingness to visit several provinces in southern Thailand, including Narathiwat and Songkhla, proves he is honest about helping (in the peace effort).
"People in southern Thailand already have what they want and the only thing they need right now is peace," he told the NST.
Aziz said the council's committee members would continue to support Zulkifli in his efforts to reach a consensus between parties in the talks.
Zulkifli, in a recent four-day working visit to southern Thailand, said the dialogue was aimed at building understanding, offering views, and facilitating efforts to reach a consensus between the parties.
He declared that the visit — armed with a mandate from Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim — was successful.
A total of 33 programmes were held during the visit to three provinces in southern Thailand — Pattani, Yala and Narathiwat — which ended yesterday.
Zulkifli held meetings with parties from academia, non-governmental organisations, civil society organisations, the religious council, and representatives of the Buddhist faith.
During the visit, he also delivered a message that "peace belongs to all".
It was Zulkifli's first working visit after being appointed Malaysia's new facilitator — replacing former inspector-general of police Tan Sri Abdul Rahim Noor — for the peace dialogue in southern Thailand. His appointment took effect on Jan 1.
Now in its 10th year, the Southern Thailand Peace Dialogue between the Thai government and militant groups began when the then prime minister, Yingluck Shinawatra, asked Malaysia to be a mediator.
A General Consensus between the Thai government and the National Revolutionary Front (BRN) was signed on Feb 28, 2013.
The talks, however, stalled following a military coup in Thailand in 2014. Negotiations continued later without the main parties, including BRN.
Negotiations between the Thai government and BRN resumed in 2019 and significant progress was made. It raised hopes for an end to violence in the south.
Statistics from the independent monitoring group Deep South Watch show an unrelenting cycle of violence in southern Thailand, starting in 2004 in Pattani, Yala, Narathiwat and Songkhla, which has claimed more than 7,000 lives.