Insurgency groups being identified

Insurgency groups being identified

As the government moves closer to opening peace talks with southern insurgents, authorities have begun identifying active insurgent groups, their leaders and weapons suppliers.

Gen Aksara Kerdphol: Southern insurgency movements are being identified.

Gen Aksara Kerdphol, chief adviser to the army and southern peace negotiation leader, said Friday his negotiations team was gathering intelligence on how many violent insurgent groups existed, who commanded them, who provided their weapons and how influential the groups are.

"The information will be verified as much as possible and reported to Malaysia, the facilitator, which will invite representatives of those groups to negotiate," he said. He thinks Malaysia has its own list of insurgency groups, which will be compared with the Thai list.

Thai authorities needed to know the profiles of the groups that the facilitator would propose for the negotiation, Gen Aksara said.

He also said that Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha instructed that dialogue partners would not start with making demands because that would block the talks from proceeding. The instruction applied specifically to extreme demands that might lead to violence, he said.

Hopes are the negotiations lead to an agreement and a roadmap containing action plans for peace restoration. The main goal of the talks is to stop violent incidents which are hampering development for residents in the southern border provinces, Gen Aksara said.

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