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KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) - Thailand's new prime minister said Wednesday that he will try to peacefully resolve the Muslim insurgency in the kingdom's southern provinces — a reversal of the previous government's iron-fisted strategy.
Prime Minister Surayud Chulanont, on a one-day visit to Malaysia, said he will reach out to all minority Muslims in the predominantly Buddhist country to end the separatist insurgency, which has claimed more than 1,700 lives since January 2004.
"We will try to talk to a lot of people," said Surayud, a former army general who was named Thailand's interim prime minister after a Sept. 19 bloodless military coup that ousted the elected government of Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra.
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