BANGKOK - THAI Prime Minister Somchai Wongsawat says he will stay in power despite growing calls for his resignation in the wake of a deadly confrontation between police and protesters last week.

Mr Somchai told a 20-minute press conference on Friday that he had no plans to step down.

'The government cannot just abandon its work and responsibility,' he said.

Army chief General Anupong Paochinda on Thursday hinted that Mr Somchai should step down in the wake of the confrontation between police and protesters last week that killed one demonstrator and injured more than 400 other people.

Mr Somchai told journalists that he i tended to host an Asean summit in Bangkok in December.

'The government has a duty to carry on the policies and tasks that are coming up,' he said.

He said he would also attend the funeral in November of King Bhumibol Adulyadej's sister and the birthday of the king on Dec 5.

His news conference followed a hastily convened meeting of the ruling party's coalition partners triggered by the head of the army saying Mr Somchai should step down to take responsibility for bloody clashes between police and protesters last week.

Despite his comments, made in a live television interview on Thursday alongside the heads of the navy, air force and police, army chief Aupong Paochinda insisted he was not about to launch a coup only two years after the removal of Thaksin Shinawatra.

Analysts read his remarks as an attempt by the military, which is under heavy pressure from the People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD) street movement, to undermine Mr Somchai so much that he jumps without the need for a full-blown putsch.

'The generals know another coup will isolate Thailand from the rest of the world, so they had to come out on TV to heap pressure on the government,' polit cal analyst Boonyakiat Karavekphan of Bangkok's Ramkhamhaeng University said.

Mr Somchai, Thaksin's brother-in-law and a political novice, came to power in September after a court removed his predecessor, Samak Sundaravej, for hosting a cooking show on commercial television while in office.

Few analysts expected him to last more than a few months, and Gen Anupong's comments are only likely to hasten that demise although the tactic appears not to have worked - for now.

Please go, says army chief
Mr Somchai had originally been scheduled to fly to eastern Thailand for a visit on Saturday to troops involved in this week's clash with Cambodia around the 900-year-old Preah Vihear temple, a source of tension for decades.

Some analysts link the eruption of fighting on the border to the political instability that has roiled Thailand for the last three years, and which appears to be reaching another climax.

'I somehow doubt that the Thai action is more than a reflection of the intense nationalism which the army feel they must demonstrate to keep the population on their side,' Mr Derek Tonkin, a former British ambassador to Thailand, said.

Gen Anupong's main remark - 'If I were the prime minister, I would have resigned' - was the strongest indication yet that the armed forces think the time is up for Mr Somchai's elected administration.

However, government spokesman Nattawut Saikuar said he did not think the military would dare intervene only two years after its removal of Thaksin, a coup that failed to purge him from the political system due to his sustained rural support.

'The army chief has consistently assured us that it will not happen, which is a blessing for the country,' Mr Nattawut told Channel 3 television.

'Otherwise this cannot end. Another group of people will rise to fight the power behind the coup.' -- AP, REUTERS