The Thai government and Red Shirt protesters discussed a ceasefire deal today as street battles that have killed at least 37 people raged on.
Red Shirt leader Nattawut Saikuwa was told by the government’s chief negotiator that troops would be called off if the demonstrators retreated into their Bangkok stronghold.
However Nattawut’s group did not make any immediate decision.
Earlier a Thai government ultimatum passed for the estimated 5,000 protesters occupying a barricaded encampment in the city centre by today or face up to two years in prison.
The demand had little apparent effect, and unrest still flared in various parts of the area outside the barricades, with troops firing at protesters who were lighting tyres to hide their positions.
The government then extended its deadline, easing fears of a crackdown amid street battles. "Some protesters received distorted information," government spokesman Panitan Wattanayagorn said on the Thai PBS television network. "We need to communicate with them clearly. It will take time."
A protest organiser initially agreed to call back demonstrators from the zones where clashes have occurred, then didn't mention it when addressing supporters, the spokesman said. The government's main focus is to convince women and children to leave the site, he added.
The Red Shirts, many of whom are from impoverished rural areas, are trying to remove Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva and force immediate elections. They say the coalition government came to power through manipulation of the courts and the backing of the powerful military, and that it symbolises a national elite indifferent to their plight.
Mr Abhisit has vowed "no retreat" against "armed terrorists" seeking to topple his government.
Previous attempts to negotiate an end to the two-month stand-off have failed. A government offer earlier this month to hold November elections floundered after protest leaders made more demands.
Government’s negotiator Korbsak Sabhavasu said he talked to Nattawut for five minutes, during which the Red Shirt leader proposed a cease-fire. He said he told Nattawut that the army will stop shooting if he calls his fighters back from the streets to the core protest site. “If they call their people back to Rajprasong there will be no single bullet fired by the soldiers,” he said, referring to the square-mile protest area occupied by the Red Shirts in an upmarket commercial district of the capital.
The Rajprasong area is encircled by troops in a wide perimeter, and protesters have spilled out into surrounding streets that have become a battleground. The rioters have set fire to vehicles and fired homemade bombs and firecrackers at the soldiers, who have responded with live ammunition.
At least 37 people have been killed in the violence and more than 250 injured.
Around the city, people were hoarding food, while hotels were pleading for guests to leave. The new school term has been postponed and today and tomorrow were declared public holidays, although financial markets and banks remained open.
As fighting subsided in some areas, residents and tourists in the commercial district were seen leaving while they could, with luggage and children in tow. Chulalongkorn Hospital, adjacent to the encampment, had evacuated all of its patients.
Spradic clashes broke out in some parts of the city, but there were no reports of fresh casualties. Protesters
lobbed petrol petrol bombs and rocks, and rolled burning tyres at troops, who returned fire in a run-down area near the business district. An oil tanker was stolen from a petrol station, parked in the road and used as a defensive wall by demonstrators. Thailand's energy minister said it was mostly empty.
The army has surrounded the encampment in an attempt to block people and supplies from coming and step up pressure on the protesters barricaded behind huge walls of tyres, poles and concrete, topped by razor wire.
Military helicopters dropped leaflets on the camp calling on the protesters to leave immediately, and troops readied buses for any who wanted to leave, but no one was seen boarding them.
Fighting near the encampment was intense overnight. A rocket hit the 14th floor of the Dusit Thani Hotel, a Reuters photographer said, triggering gunfire from all sides in the pitch darkness, since power had been cut to the area. The hotel was evacuated this morning after guests spent much of the night cowering in the basement.
Fighting erupted in three areas of the city of 15 million people at the weekend as the army struggled to establish the perimeter around an encampment occupying 3 sq kms (1.2 sq miles) in an area packed with hotels, malls, offices and embassies.
The death today of a renegade Major General who was the red shirts' military adviser, and an embarrassment to the military, threatened to further stoke tensions.
Major General Khattiya Sawasdipol, better known as Seh Daeng (Commander Red), had been shot in the head by a sniper on Thursday, a shooting that fuelled the latest violence in a five-year crisis pitting the rural and urban poor against the "establishment elite" that traditionally runs Thailand.
King Bhumibol Adulyadej (82), has stepped in to end past deadly crises during his 63 years in power but has been in hospital for seven months and has not publicly commented on this latest turbulence.
The Red Shirts, loyal to former premier Thaksin Shinawatra who was ousted in a 2006 coup, say Mr Abhisit's army-backed government, which came to power 18 months ago in a controversial parliamentary vote, is illegitimate and want new elections.
At least 66 people have been killed and more than 1,600 wounded since the red shirts began their protest in mid-March.
A state of emergency has spread to more than a quarter of the country after emergency decrees were declared in five more provinces yesterday, bringing the total to 22.
Small protests were reported in several provinces in the north, a Thaksin stronghold and home to just over half of Thailand's 67 million people. Police in eastern Chonburi province said hundreds gathered overnight and were attempting to block a major port.