Thai authorities discuss post New Year work

BANGKOK, January 2 (TNA) - Thailand's Caretaker Prime Minister and Defence Minister Yingluck Shinawatra chaired a meeting of the Center for the Administration of Peace and Order (CAPO) at the Royal Thai Police headquarters in Bangkok on Thursday morning to discuss her caretaker administration's post New Year work. Also present at the meeting include Caretaker Deputy Prime Minister Pongthep Thepkanchana, Caretaker Minister Attched to the Prime Minister’s Office Varathep Ratanakorn and Secretary-General to the Cabinet Ampon Kittiampon. Varathep told reporters that the caretaker prime minister was planning the government’s work after the New Year festival, including assessing the domestic political situation relating to persistent demonstrations of the anti-government People’s Democratic Reform Committee (PDRC), whose core leader Suthep Thaugsuban, a former deputy prime minister of the Democrat Party, has threatened to lay siege to Bangkok from January 13 onward. Varathep said that the caretaker government was working out measures to minimize impacts on traffic and people’s life. Varathep, however, called for the PDRC to consider responses of people in Bangkok and Thai people to express their political stances by voting in the new general election on February 2, 2014. The caretaker minister insisted that the caretaker government is doing its best to maintain national order and it has not had a plan to impose other special laws in addition to the Internal Security Act (ISA), now enforced in the capital and certain areas in its adjacent provinces. Regarding the caretaker government’s initiative on a national reform council, the caretaker minister acknowledged that the caretaker administration is listening to opinions from concerned parties and he expects the caretaker government to come up with a clear direction on the matter within a few days. (TNA)