BANGKOK -- Thai authorities launched last-ditch talks with protesters occupying Bangkok's main airports Friday after demonstrators vowed they would "fight to the death" any attempt to evict them.
Premier Somchai Wongsawat imposed a state of emergency at the airports late Thursday but a day later said he wanted to avoid potentially bloody clashes with the demonstrators, which include children.
Airlines began flying stranded travelers out of a naval base Friday but tens of thousands of passengers are believed to have missed flights after four days of unrest that have badly hit Thailand's tourist industry.
"The government does not want to trigger any violence or casualties, so to implement the law under international practice, as of now negotiations are under way," Somchai told reporters in the northern city of Chiang Mai.
He said he was "not setting a deadline" for the talks, despite earlier saying the People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD) protest movement were holding Thailand to ransom.
Demonstrators braced for an assault overnight, extending razor wire cordons to about three kilometers (two miles) around the flagship Suvarnabhumi international airport and blocking access roads, witnesses said.
"We are not afraid. We will fight to the death, we will not surrender and we are ready," one of the main protest leaders, Somsak Kosaisuk, told a crowd of supporters at the domestic Don Mueang airport.
The PAD, which is backed by elements of the palace, the army and Thailand's Bangkok-based elite, says the government elected in December is corrupt, nepotistic and a puppet of exiled former premier Thaksin Shinawatra.
Police said 4,000 protesters were still at Suvarnabhumi since seizing the airport on Tuesday. At Don Mueang another 2,500 had blockaded the building since its capture late Wednesday.
The UN Children's Fund said it was "deeply concerned" for the safety of children camped out with demonstrators at the besieged airports, calling on protesters and authorities to ensure their safety.
A handful of young children remain at Suvarnabhumi, witnesses said, many dressed in the yellow scarves and t-shirts which symbolize the monarchy and have become the uniform of the anti-government movement.
Metropolitan Police commander Lieutenant General Suchart Mueankaeo said there had been initial telephone contacts with protesters and that police would visit Don Mueang later to tell them that their acts violate the law.
The army has already opposed the use of force against protesters, stoking further tensions with the government in a nation that has seen 18 coups in the past 76 years, including the one that toppled Thaksin in 2006.
Government spokesman Suparat Nakbunnam said Somchai would remain in Chiang Mai indefinitely "as there are still uncertainties in the tensions between the government and army".
The military denied rumors on Thursday that it was planning to launch another putsch, despite reports that Somchai was about to sack the powerful army chief for calling for the dissolution of the government.
With the crisis affecting Thailand's ties with the world, the secretary general of Southeast Asian bloc ASEAN traveled to Bangkok to assess whether a summit scheduled for December in Chiang Mai could proceed.
Airlines meanwhile struggled to get even a handful of passengers out of the U-Tapao naval base about 190 kilometers (118 miles) southeast of Bangkok -- a low-tech, one-runway airfield built by US forces during the Vietnam War.
"Around 40 flights are going to fly in and out of U-Tapao today [Friday]," said an official at the Department of Civil Aviation.
The Ministry of Tourism called a crisis meeting Friday attended by airport officials and representatives from 50 airlines to try to map out a strategy for getting people in and out of the kingdom.
