By Apornrath Phoonphongphiphat
BANGKOK (Reuters) - Thai government officials huddled on Saturday to consider a peace overture by tens of thousands of protesters demanding elections in an increasingly deadly six-week street rally in Bangkok.
The red-shirted supporters of ousted former premier Thaksin Shinawatra said on Friday they will end a three-week occupation of Bangkok's ritzy shopping district if the government dissolved parliament and announced elections in 30 days, softening a previous demand for immediate dissolution.
With the new timeframe, the government would then have another 60 days to hold the election.
It was unclear whether the military-backed government of embattled Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva would agree to that timetable. Analysts say he is running out of options after weeks of unrest by protesters who have gained a clear upper hand.
"The government might have to agree to a three-month timeframe, but this doesn't mean this will ease the tensions," said Pitch Pongsawat, a political scientist at Chulalongkorn University. "There doesn't seem to be any real control about what's been happening on the streets."
Abhisit and other senior government officials were meeting at a military base to consider the red shirts' offer after talks with protest leaders late on Friday.
Government spokesman Panitan Watanayagorn said Abhisit hopes talks would end the conflict, but they should not take place "under pressure or any kind of threat." He also criticised the red shirts for what he said were shifting demands.
"We are open for negotiation. But the talks should not be held in an atmosphere of threats with people breaking the law," he told Reuters.
A series of grenade blasts killed one person and wounded 88 on Thursday in the heart of Bangkok's business district in an attack the government blamed on the red shirts, who denied they were responsible.
The risk of further violence remains high.
GOING AFTER 'TERRORISTS'
Tens of thousands of red shirts remain in a fortified encampment at a district of high-end department stores in central Bangkok, vowing to stay until parliament is dissolved and defying a state of emergency that bans large gatherings of protesters.
The government says the crowd includes "terrorists" willing to use violence to bring down the government and overturn the monarchy and wants to go after that element, not peaceful protesters.
"At this moment it's not dispersing (the red shirt demonstrators), it's a crime suppression," army spokesman Sansern Kaewkamnerd said. "We are ready to wipe out terrorists and we will do it at an appropriate time... We need to make sure that there are very few innocent people there before doing anything."
The red shirts in their new proposals also want Abhisit to begin an independent probe into a clash that killed 25 people and wounded hundreds in a failed attempt to disperse the protesters on April 10, and for troops to withdraw from their protest site.
The demands came shortly after army chief Anupong Paochinda offered an olive leaf of his own, telling commanders there would be no crackdown on the protesters because it would do more harm than good.
A powerful backlash against the mostly rural and working-class red shirts is growing among Bangkok's royalist establishment who took to the streets on Friday holding placards reading "no dissolution."
The pro-government protesters, who call themselves "multi-coloured shirts," plan to rally again on Saturday.
If Abhisit caves in, those royalists who believe the red shirts want to topple Thailand's monarchy are likely to fight back with a vengeance. In 2008, they blockaded Bangkok's international airport, stranding at least 230,000 people until a court dissolved a pro-Thaksin ruling party for electoral fraud.
The violence and deepening political divide has spurred talk of civil war in Southeast Asia's second-biggest economy.
"This hardening of the battle lines between the two sides does not bode well for Bangkok's security situation and a risk of another, and this time maybe even more violent, crackdown is immediate," risk consultancy IHS Global Insight said in a report.
Diplomats and analysts say the army's middle ranks look dangerously split with one faction backing the protesters led by retired generals allied with Thaksin, who was ousted in a 2006 coup and later sentenced in absentia for corruption.
The red shirts say British-born and Oxford-educated Abhisit came to power illegitimately in December 2008, heading a coalition the military cobbled together after courts dissolved a pro-Thaksin party that led the previous government.
(Writing by Jason Szep; Additional reporting by Panarat Thepgumpanat; Editing by Bill Tarrant)
