Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi arrived in neighboring Thailand on Sunday for a two-day visit aimed largely at boosting cooperation to ease violence in the kingdom's Muslim-majority south.

Abdullah was greeted by army-installed Prime Minister Surayud Chulanont at the international airport in the southern resort island of Phuket. They will play golf Sunday and hold summit talks in Bangkok on Monday.

"They will discuss many issues including the problem in the south," said Thai foreign ministry spokesman Kitti Wasinond.

"As a neighbouring country of Thailand, Malaysia has expressed its willingness to help solve the situation in the south and we will discuss what Thailand and Malaysia can do together to solve the problem," Kitti said.

The three-year Islamic insurgency in the Thai south has strained ties between mainly Buddhist Thailand and Muslim-majority Malaysia, with reports of insurgent training camps in Malaysia and claims that Thai restaurants there are funding the separatist movement.

Killings continue

Surayud, who came to power following a September coup that ousted former premier Thaksin Shinawatra, adopted a reconciliatory approach in a bid to quell the insurgency, which has killed more than 1,900 people since 2004.

But almost daily shootings, bombings and arson attacks continue to rattle in Yala, Pattani and Narathiwat, the three Muslim-majority southern provinces bordering Malaysia.

Earlier in the day, suspected Islamic militants shot dead a Muslim couple in their mid-30s and the woman's 52-year-old mother as they worked at a rubber plantation in Yala.

Residents in the south are mostly ethnic Malay and Muslim, sharing more culturally with Malaysia than with the rest of Buddhist Thailand.

The restive region was an independent sultanate annexed by mainly Buddhist Thailand in 1902. Separatist violence has erupted periodically ever since.

Apart from the south problem, Abdullah and Surayud are expected to discuss strengthening economic ties, the Thai foreign ministry said.

Thai exports to Malaysia jumped 14 percent year-on-year to 6.6 billion dollars in 2006, with Thai imports from the neighbour up three percent at 8.4 billion dollars last year, according to the Bank of Thailand.