The leaders of Thailand and Malaysia on Friday agreed to boost security cooperation and consider building a border wall to combat transnational crime and smuggling, an idea that appears to be gaining popularity elsewhere in the world.
People trafficking and the smuggling of contraband, including drugs and petrol, have flourished along the Thai-Malaysian border for years until a crackdown by Thai officials on human traffickers caused some of the routes to shut down last year.
Separatist insurgents operating in Thailand’s south use Malaysia as a base to launch and plan their attacks, analysts said.
Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak said that security remained “a very important matter” for both countries and there was an agreement to step up intelligence gathering and sharing to rein in cross-border terrorism.
“We both face security issues including the fight against terrorism, human trafficking and illegal smuggling, that is why we need to address these issues seriously,” Thai Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha said.
Najib said both sides had discussed the construction and extension of a border wall, but details remained to be worked out.
“The matter is under consideration, but we need to determine the physical dimensions of the wall or fence as well as the sharing of the costs,” he said.
The step reflects a controversial plan by Republican US presidential candidate Donald Trump to build a wall on the border between the US and Mexico, and get Mexico to pay the cost.
It remains unclear who would pay for the Thai-Malaysian wall, which the two countries first formally discussed last year. A fence already runs along parts of their 640km border.
Najib’s visit follows three deadly bomb attacks in southern Thailand over the past month, including a wave of bombings in tourist towns that Thai police linked to Muslim separatists.
Analysts said the attacks were carried out by a separatist insurgent group known as Barisan Revolusi Nasional after it was left out of peace talks between Thailand and another separatist umbrella group in Malaysia.
Thailand’s three southernmost provinces of Pattani, Yala and Narathiwat were part of an independent Malay Muslim sultanate until Thailand annexed them in 1909.
Since 2004, Muslim separatists operating in the area have waged a bloody insurgency that has killed more than 6,500 people, conflict monitor Deep South Watch said.
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