KUALA LUMPUR, April 30: Malaysia is willing to offer temporary refuge to Thais fleeing troubled provinces in southern Thailand, Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi said on Friday. "It will not be refugee camps but some arrangements must be made," the official Bernama news agency quoted him as saying.

"They will want a place of refuge until peace returns to their area and, with the uncertainty at present, naturally they will want to come over here," Abdullah said. This week's violence just across Malaysia's border, in which more than 100 young Muslims were killed, has outraged many of the country's majority Muslim Malays.

Particularly shocking was the army's killing of 34 guerillas sheltering in a mosque in the town of Pattani after they had attacked security posts. Deputy Prime Minister Najib Razak is to lead a Malaysian delegation to Bangkok next week to obtain a clear picture of the violence in the mainly Muslim region.

Najib said his trip did not mean Kuala Lumpur was interfering in Thailand's internal affairs. "We respect Thailand's sovereignty and our stance is that what happened in southern Thailand is the country's own internal matter," said Najib, who is also defence minister.

"We have no desire to interfere, but in the spirit of neighbourliness and in the spirit of ASEAN we need to talk and exchange ideas so that we can give our views to the Thai government and strengthen co-operation among ourselves," he said. -Reuters