{"id":6959,"date":"2019-02-04T10:20:54","date_gmt":"2019-02-04T02:20:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.namnewsnetwork.org\/?p=6959"},"modified":"2019-02-04T10:30:33","modified_gmt":"2019-02-04T02:30:33","slug":"peace-efforts-in-disarray-as-mara-patani-suspends-talks-with-thai-government","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/?p=6959","title":{"rendered":"Peace efforts in disarray, as MARA Patani suspends talks with Thai government"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"
Head of Majlis Syura Patani (MARA Patani) Ustaz Shukri Hari during a press conference in Kota Bharu, Kelantan earlier last year. File photo courtesy of BERNAMA<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 4 (NNN-BERNAMA) — Efforts to find peace in southern Thailand have been thrown into disarray following the decision by the dialogue panel of Majlis Syura Patani to suspend all peace dialogue meetings with the Thai government.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Its head of dialogue panel, Shukri Hari, said the decision to suspend the talks until after the conclusion of the country\u2019s March general election, followed the group\u2019s disappointment with the attitude shown by the head of Thai peace panel General Udomchai Thammasarorat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBoth Mara Patani and the Thai dialogue teams arrived in Kuala Lumpur on Feb 2 for the introductory meeting. However, we were informed that the Head of the Thai panel, General Udomchai would not attend the meeting. He would only meet me personally and separately.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe are disappointed with General Udomchai\u2019 attitude which contradicts his earlier statement that he would hold dialogue and respect all groups and stakeholders,\u201d he said in a statement to Bernama on Sunday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mara Patani according to Shukri, saw Udomchai\u2019s refusal to confront the group\u2019s dialogue panel as unacceptable and suspected  \u2018a hidden agenda\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He said the group also called on the Thai government to replace General Udomchai with someone \u2018more credible\u2019 in order to find solutions to the long-running conflict in Pattani.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Udomchai was recently appointed by Thai Prime Minister General Prayut Chan-o-cha to spearhead the southern Thai peace talks, in place of longtime negotiator General Aksara Kerdphol.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The introductory meeting which was supposed to take place on Sunday was arranged by the new Malaysian facilitator to the peace talks, former Inspector-General of Police (IGP) Abdul Rahim Noor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The former top cop was appointed to the post by Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mara Patani also did not attend Sunday\u2019s introductory meeting, which, if realised as scheduled, would signify their first official meeting after several months.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mara Patani is an umbrella body representing several southern Thai groups.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since it erupted in 2004, the low-intensity conflict grappling the four southern Thai provinces namely Pattani, Yala, Narathiwat and Songkla had claimed more than 6,500 lives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

— BERNAMA<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 4 (NNN-BERNAMA) — Efforts to find peace in southern Thailand have been thrown into disarray following the decision by the dialogue panel of Majlis Syura Patani to suspend all peace dialogue meetings with the Thai government. Its head of dialogue panel, Shukri Hari, said the decision to suspend the talks until after the conclusion of the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":6981,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[215,288],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6959"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/19"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6959"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6959\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6981"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6959"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6959"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6959"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}