No immediate end to emergency rule: Thailand's Deputy Prime Minister

Bangkok, May 23(ANI): Thailand's Deputy Prime Minister Suthep Thaugsuban has said that Bangkok and some provinces will continue to be under curfew, and the Centre for the Resolution for the Emergency Situation (CRES) has no immediate plan to repeal the emergency decree.

Suthep, who is also CRES Director, said the decision on whether to extend the curfew would be made on a day-to-day basis.

The CRES believed that a large amount of heavy weapons were still in the possession of radical red shirt groups and vowed to find them to prevent further violence, he said.

"The CRES will press ahead with our operations to search for weapons and arrest those who took away the authorities' arms," The Bangkok Post quoted Suthep, as saying.

Meanwhile, the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration (BMA) expects to return clean streets to Bangkokians by Monday after a massive clean-up operation at six Red-Shirt protest venues.

Nearly 1,800 people have been wounded in the period as the government, backed by Thailand's royalist establishment, and the protesters with their support from the rural masses and ousted premier Thaksin Shinawatra, failed to find common ground. (ANI)