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PATTAYA, Thailand : The foreign ministers of China, Japan and South Korea cancelled a meeting at an Asian summit here Saturday after Thai anti-government protesters blockaded their hotel, officials said.
Hundreds of demonstrators calling for the resignation of Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva prevented the Japanese minister's car from entering the venue in the beach resort of Pattaya, AFP reporters said.
The meeting, which was set to discuss North Korea's recent rocket launch and economic issues, was delayed after the ministers had waited for an hour, officials from the Chinese and Japanese delegations said.
News of the key Asian nations' decision to withdraw from the summit comes after Thai protesters laid siege to the gathering of Asian leaders on Friday, clashing with security forces and forcing their struggle to oust the prime minister into the international spotlight.
British-born Abhisit had earlier vowed that the summit, which had been focused on finding ways to fight the global financial crisis, would go ahead. It has already been postponed and relocated several times because of Thailand's political turmoil.
"We will ensure that the meeting will proceed smoothly," he told a press conference. "I would like to reiterate that we can provide security."
Red-shirted protesters loyal to fugitive ex-PM Thaksin Shinawatra breached several security cordons to reach the venue, then surged through a perimeter fence and scuffled with about 500 soldiers who forced them back.
The major security breach came despite repeated assurances from Abhisit's four-month-old government that it would not let the kingdom's long-running internal political troubles disrupt the meeting officially starting on Friday.
"Today we are not coming to stop the summit. We have come to join the summit to represent the Thai people because Abhisit cannot be responsible for our rights," protest leader Arismun Pongreungrong told AFP.
Police later escorted Arismun, a former pop singer, and a delegation of protesters into the building to present a protest letter, after which the crowd agreed to disperse but promised to return the following day.
Security forces had offered little resistance to the surging crowd, amid fears of a repeat of political violence in Bangkok in October in which two people died.
ASEAN chief Surin Pitsuwan said Asian nations were concerned by the rally at the summit, the biggest gathering of international leaders since last week's G20 meeting in London.
"Certainly there is a level of concern, but as I said, it's part of democracy," he told reporters.
Protesters launched new mass rallies in Bangkok Wednesday to push Abhisit to resign, insisting that he came to power undemocratically through a court ruling that toppled Thaksin's allies in December.
With protest numbers reaching a peak of 100,000 earlier in the week, taxi drivers have blocked a key intersection in Bangkok for the last two days, causing long snarl-ups.
The mood at the summit site was cheerful at first, with protesters arriving on pick-up trucks and scooters, chanting "Abhisit get out" and waving their movement's trademark plastic foot-shaped clappers.
But as the skies darkened, the protesters pushed towards the glass doors of the venue, prompting troops in camouflage to force them back with riot shields and, at one point, take up positions inside the hotel, AFP reporters said.
Abhisit said the meeting in Pattaya, which groups the 10-member ASEAN with China, Japan, South Korea, India, Australia and New Zealand, would "look for ways to contribute to a global recovery."
Domestically, the Thai premier has repeatedly resisted calls to step down and his government hardened its stance Friday, saying it intended to arrest the leaders of the anti-government protests.
His nemesis Thaksin, a billionaire populist who still has a loyal following among the country's poor but is loathed by the Bangkok elite, was ousted in a military coup in 2006.
Living in exile to avoid a two-year prison sentence for corruption, Thaksin has been egging on the protesters with nightly messages via videolink.
Businessmen, professionals and supporters dressed in the red shirts of European football teams joined forces for Friday's rally.
Naris Hualprapai, a 44-year-old former Pattaya travel agent, said he was furious at the closure of Bangkok's international airport last year as part of huge protests that eventually brought down the Thaksin-allied government.
"I lost my business last year after they closed the airport," he told AFP as he joined his wife, who was clad in the red and black of Italian football giants AC Milan.
"That had a direct effect on my family."
- AFP/vm
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