Thai PM will not stand down in crisis: Minister

BANGKOK - Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva will not bow to "red shirt" protesters' demands and dissolve parliament, Finance Minister Korn Chatikavanij said on Thursday as tens of thousands massed in Bangkok.

The city was calm on the final day of Thailand's new-year holiday but political analysts said Abhisit's days were numbered and warned the risk of a military coup was escalating.

"He is not intending to do it," Korn, a fellow student of Abhisit at Oxford, told Reuters in an interview when asked whether Abhisit would dissolve parliament after violence last weekend killed 22 people.