Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi has been reported to have chided Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra for alleging that insurgents in southern Thailand had been trained in the PAS- governed Kelantan.

It is very rarely that we see the mild-mannered Pak Lah lose his composure. It is our hope that the Thai allegation could be straightened out and resolved as soon as possible. Malaysia certainly has not been fiddling with the explosive situation in southern Thailand.

It must be appreciated that on the Malaysian side, we have already reaffirmed categorically that we will not support nor provide any assistance to the insurgents.

It is however, our hope that the Thaksin government will respect the basic principles of human rights and offer a better deal to the impoverished Muslim community in the southern states. The Malaysian concern is clear and simple - that a happy and prosperous neighbour is an asset while one that is always in a state of turmoil is a worry.

My own observation is that Thaksin had been inspired by the recent cheap potshot fired by Umno's Annuar Musa at PAS. The latter alleged that the PAS government had diverted income from forest concessions to support the Muslim insurgents in southern Thailand.

This allegation has never been conclusively proven. These type of irresponsible statements made by Umno members from time to time in desperate moments are damaging and in this instance, has resulted in the loss of goodwill from a major neighbour.

It would appear that senior Umno members are desperate in their efforts to gain attention and score points with their superiors though the results of such excesses could be very much to their own detriment.

I was not surprised when former Umno president Dr Mahathir Mohamad once lamented that the quality of Umno members had deteriorated badly of late.