Thailand's junta leader said he will leave late today for Kuala Lumpur to hold talks with Malaysia's army chief on the insurgency along their shared border.

General Sonthi Boonyaratglin said he would hold the talks on Tuesday and return to Bangkok on the same day.

"It is not formal visit, I will go and talk about how can they help us," he told reporters.

Malaysia was one of the first overseas trips made by military-appointed Prime Minister Surayud Chulanont after he took office last month.

The nearly three-year insurgency in Muslim-majority provinces of southern Thailand has left more than 1,600 dead and has strained relations with Malaysia.

Surayud's government has tried to mend relations and adopted a more conciliatory approach, after years of heavy-handed tactics by ousted prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra.

But the violence has spiralled in the last month, including a string of bomb and arson attacks on schools last week.

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

The latest unrest has been variously blamed on ethnic Malay separatists, Islamic extremists and criminal gangs.

The trip is the second overseas visit by Sonthi in two weeks. Last week he travelled to Pakistan to meet with President Pervez Musharraf, who himself seized power in a coup in 1999.