BANGKOK (Reuters) - Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva said on Tuesday his government was consulting Asian leaders on a new date for a regional summit cancelled twice due to political unrest in Thailand.
Abhisit, who suffered a huge embarrassment when anti-government protesters invaded the venue for the East Asia Summit 10 days ago, promised tighter security next time.
"We need to make our partners feel confident that they can meet safely," Abhisit told reporters after a cabinet meeting.
He did not give details, but Foreign Ministry officials said the summit may be held in June on the southern resort island of Phuket, more than 860 km (534 miles) from the capital.
Bangkok remains under emergency rule as the government tries to contain political violence that has seen troops clash with protesters and an assassination attempt on the leader of a royalist pro-government movement.
Abhisit has said it will stay until he is sure red-shirted supporters of former premier Thaksin Shinawatra, who was ousted in a 2006 coup, have abandoned their protests.
Phuket is a stronghold of Abhisit's Democrat Party, which heads a four-month-old coalition government struggling to revive an economy hobbled by the global economic downturn and prolonged political strife at home.
Leaders from the 10 member nations of the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) and China, Japan, South Korea, India, Australia and New Zealand were to discuss the global financial crisis at the cancelled meeting.
They had also been expected to sign an investment pact with China and finalise a regional currency pool to help member nations fend off speculative attacks and capital flight.
The summit was first postponed in December after a pro-Thaksin government faced street protests by the yellow-shirted People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD), which peaked with the occupation of Bangkok's two main airports.
Abhisit's government, which came to power in December through parliamentary defections that the pro-Thaksin camp says were engineered by the army, rescheduled the East Asia meeting for April hoping it would restore Thailand's tattered image.
But the summit in the beach resort of Pattaya, about 150 km (90 miles) south of Bangkok, descended into chaos on April 11 when red-shirted Thaksin supporters broke through police lines and invaded the venue.
Abhisit imposed a brief state of emergency in Pattaya and some foreign leaders were evacuated by helicopter to a nearby military airbase.
(Reporting by Chalathip Thirasoonthrakul; writing by Darren Schuettler; Editing by Alan Raybould and Sugita Katyal)
