Progress on the demarcation of the Thai-Malaysian border will continue

Narathiwat: Thailand and Malaysia look set to continue making progress in demarcating their common border under the Anglo-Siamese Treaty of 1909, according to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

The Thai-Malaysian border stretches for 647 kilometres from Thailand's Satun province and Malaysia's Perlis state in the west to Thailand's Narathiwat province and Kelantan state in Malaysia.

Nathapol Khantahiran, deputy permanent secretary for foreign affairs, recently led a group of journalists on a visit to the Tak Bai immigration checkpoint in Narathiwat, where a forum was organised to discuss border demarcation progress.

Several government organisations, including the Department of Treaties and Legal Affairs and the Royal Thai Survey Department, attended the event.

The Anglo-Siamese Treaty, also known as the Bangkok Treaty, was an agreement between the United Kingdom and the Kingdom of Siam signed in Bangkok on March 10, 1909.

The treaty established the modern Malaysia-Thailand border. The area around modern Pattani, Narathiwat, southernmost Songkhla, Satun and Yala remained under Thai control. The southern insurgency would erupt in the region decades later.

The first border demarcation pole was erected during the reign of King Chulalongkorn the Great, said Mr Nathapol, adding that a total of 109 such poles were erected between 1910 and 1911, the first phase of the Thai-Malaysian border demarcation cooperation.

He said the second phase began in 1973 and ended in 1985, during which 12,169 border demarcation poles were erected. No new border demarcation pole has been erected since, while only damaged poles being repaired and missing ones replaced in work jointly conducted in 1993, he said.

Later, from 2000 until 2009, both sides made further progress using the Kolok River as a reference line and pinpointing 1,550 spots to erect new demarcation poles, he said. Floods later resulted in considerable changes to the landscape, including the state of the river's banks, surveyed between 2000 and 2009, which stalled demarcation work until recently, he said.

Mr Nathapol said a proposal had been made for the Thai government to form a new negotiating team to resume cooperation with Malaysia and complete the demarcation.

The proposal will be first forwarded to the cabinet for approval, he said.

While both nations have changed their governments over the past few years, during which no demarcation progress has been made, the work needs to restart and be completed for the sake of border security, transboundary crime suppression and the protection of the interests of both the Thai and Malaysian people, he said.