Thai crisis meeting ends without conclusion, more talks Thursday -...

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A crisis meeting between leaders of rival Thai political groups aimed at resolving long-running conflict ended inconclusively on Wednesday and the army has called for another meeting on Thursday, a participant said.

"The army chief asked us to go back home and think about the things we discussed in order to find a solution for the country," Puchong Nutrawong, secretary-general of the Election Commission, told Reuters, adding that the group would meet again at 2:00 p.m (0700 GMT) on Thursday.

The meeting came a day after army chief General Prayuth Chan-ocha declared martial law to try to resolve a decade-long crisis that has raised fears of civil war.

Thailand's army chief summoned leaders of rival political groups and parties, Election Commission members and senators to a meeting on Wednesday, to discuss a way out of the country's political turmoil.

Although the military denied Tuesday's surprise intervention amounted to a coup, General Prayuth Chan-ocha appears to be setting the agenda by forcing groups and organizations with a central role in the crisis to meet.

The Election Commission was meeting separately during the morning to consider the caretaker government's proposal of an Aug. 3 election.

Anti-government protesters disrupted an election in February that was later annulled. They have said they will do the same for any re-run held before electoral changes designed to reduce the influence of ousted former premier Thaksin Shinawatra.

Twenty-eight people have been killed and 700 injured since this latest chapter in a near-decade-long power struggle between Thaksin and the royalist establishment flared up late last year.

The turmoil has brought the country to the brink of recession and raised fears of civil war.

General Prayuth said he had imposed martial law to restore order, and the caretaker government says it is still running the country.

"Certainly, it's not an outright military coup by definition because the caretaker government is still in office, but on the ground it looks like the military is in charge," said Thitinan Pongsudhirak, a political analyst at Chulalongkorn University.

He said Prayuth needed to convince everyone with a stake in the outcome of the need for "reforms before and after elections".

"He's taking a lot of risk, Prayuth, because the imposition of martial law puts him in a very tight spot ... The longer we do not see a resolution, the riskier it will become for the army," Thitinan said.

REUTERS