Udomchai: Thailand has final sayGen Udomchai Thammasaroraj made his comments after Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad suggested Thailand should try offering southerners a certain level of autonomy to persuade them to give up their struggle for independence. He said Malaysia only serves as the facilitator of the peace talks between the Thai government's team and the Mara Patani. There are various forms of autonomous administrative divisions, while only the general idea has been mentioned, he said. Asked if the Barisan Revolusi Nasional (BRN) has agreed to take part in new peace talks, he said they still have not responded to the invitation and Malaysia is trying to persuade them to do so. He said no one in the BRN had ever openly mentioned floating the idea of autonomy in order to pressure the Thai peace talks team to agree to the idea before entering the talks.

Source: Bangkok Post December 20, 2018 21:00 UTC