Bangkok - Thai Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej departed Wednesday for Malaysia for talks that are to include an increasingly violent separatist movement on the two countries' border.

Samak was scheduled to meet Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi on Thursday with the focus expected to be on Thailand's ongoing problems quelling a bloody separatist struggle in its three southernmost, majority-Muslim provinces, which has claimed more than 3,000 lives in the past four years

The Thai premier, who is also defence minister, reportedly plans to ask Badawi to arrest and extradite two suspected militants, according to Thai intelligence sources.

But Badawi, whose UMNO Party suffered losses in last month's parliamentary election to the Parti Islam se-Malaysia (PAS) and is under pressure to resign, might be in no position to assist Samak.

PAS has in the past supported Thailand's southern provinces of Narathiwat, Pattani and Yala in their goal of establishing a separate Islamic state.

The provinces comprised the independent Islamic sultanate of Pattani for centuries before it fell under Bangkok's rule about 200 years ago.

More than 80 per cent of the provinces' 2 million people are Muslims, making the region an anomaly in predominantly Buddhist Thailand.

The majority of the people living in Thailand's deep South also speak Malay and follow Malay customs.

A separatist struggle has flared on and off in the area for decades but took a turn for the worse in January 2004 when Muslim militants, inspired by rising Muslim militancy abroad, attacked an army depot and stole 300 weapons, prompting a crackdown that further inflamed the local population against the government. (dpa)