Safety zone set with southern insurgency movements

BANGKOK, March 16 (TNA) – The secretary to the government’s southern peace negotiation team says the government and representatives of southern insurgency movements have set a safety zone. Maj Gen Sitthi Trakulwong, the secretary to the southern peace negotiation team, dismissed earlier reports that some government officials supported violent movements in southern border provinces. He said that in the past government officials believed that they could reach active insurgency leaders in the deep South through their informants. Under the approach, violence-oriented groups could use government officials who were unaware. Maj Gen Sitthi said Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha clearly banned violent means by all parties and ordered support for participatory negotiations to find peaceful solutions to southern conflicts. “I assure that peace negotiations will be an important tool in accordance with peaceful approaches to solve long-standing conflicts. Both sides have agreed with a safety zone. It is a turning point where all parties must shift from violence to peaceful solutions and cooperate to end the long-standing southern violence,” Maj Gen Sitthi said. He also quoted Gen Aksara Kerdpol, chief of the southern peace negotiation team, as asking the mass media to present facts positively and refrain from any exaggeration or headline that may trigger conflicts or cause misunderstanding. (TNA)