Fifteen representatives of the protesting rubber growers in southern Thailand have agreed to fly to Bangkok for a meeting with Deputy Prime Minister and Commerce Minister Kittiratt Na-Ranong and other officials on Wednesday evening, Deputy Prime Minister Pracha Promnok said.
He said they would be attending a meeting with Mr Kittiratt, Agriculture and Cooperatives Minister Yukol Limlaemthong and himself at the Centara Government Complex Hotel on Chaeng Wattana Road.
Pol Gen Pracha said the farmers, who are protesting about low rubber prices, will not be allowed to blockade Surat Thani airport.
Policemen have been deployed to prevent protesting rubber farmers from blockading Surat Thani airport on Wednesday. (Photo by Patipat Janthong)
He said the south-bound rail route and main roads are still closed by protests, but the government would continue to negotiate.
The protests in Chumphon and Rayong had been called off, he added.
Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra called an urgent meeting with Pol Gen Pracha, Mr Kittiratt and Mr Yukol at Government House at 3pm, ahead of the scheduled meeting with the rubber farmers' representatives.
Earlier, at 11.50am in Surat Thani, Sangiam Kerdsombat, a former chief of tambon Khlong Sai in Tha Chang district, went onto the rally stage and announced that rubber growers would continue with their protest.
As Mr Sangiam was talking, Manoon Upala, a protest coordinator, was telling farmers to end the protest after a meeting with Pol Maj Gen Tawat Boonfueng, the prime minister's deputy secretary-general.
Mr Sangiam then led about 3,000 protesters in a march from the protest site in front of the Co-Op office of Surat Thani to block the intersection of Highway 41 and Road 417, about 1km from Surat Thani airport.
Voradej Harnprasert, director-general of the Civil Aviation Department, said he had been advised that airport authorities had decided to close all gates shortly after noon.
Out-bound passengers were told to wait at Wang Kung bus terminal to be transported on an alternative route to the airport. Arrivals were also transported by bus via the same route out of the airport, he said.
On Tuesday, the cabinet approved 5.62 billion baht from the central budget for use as a subsidy for rubber planters, as proposed by the national rubber policy committee.
Mr Kittiratt said a subsidy of 1,260 baht per rai of rubber plantation, limited to 10 rai per farmer, will be transferred through the Bank for Agriculture and Agricultural Cooperatives (BACC) accounts directly to rubber growers.
The approved subsidy is lower than the one the government earlier offered and which was accepted by rubber farmers in the Central Plains, the North and Northeast, but rejected by those in the South and the East.
Previously, the government offered a subsidy for up to 25 rai per farmer.