Pacts delay would be setback: Surin

The government will join other leaders from Asean and its partners in inking some 30 documents during the 14th Asean summit to be held in Chiang Mai next month.

The accords include the Chiang Mai Declaration on the Roadmap for an Asean Community 2009-2015, which is an important blueprint for forging a united Asean community.

The anti-government People's Alliance for Democracy yesterday blocked legislators from meeting to consider the pacts.

A special joint session will be convened from December 8-9 to consider the Asean documents, but it remains unclear whether the protesters will seal off Parliament again. Thai leaders' signatures could be left blank and filled in later when ready if Parliament failed to endorse the documents on time, Surin said.

"But if we need to do so, it would slow down the process to build the Asean community," he said. Asean hopes the Thai government can get the pacts approved by Parliament in time, he added.

If the political situation caused a changed in the government prior to the summit, Asean members would understand the "inconvenience of parliamentary democracy", he said. "As long as it happened under the constitutional process, it would be understood," he added. The summit and related meetings of the leaders will discuss the global financial crisis, food and energy security as well as climate change.

Asean also invited United Nations chief Ban Ki-moon, as well as World Bank president Robert Zoellick, World Trade Organisation director-general Pascal Lamy and International Monetary Fund managing director Dominique Strauss-Kahn, Asian Development Bank president Haruhiko Kuroda and UN Conference on Trade and Development secretary-general Supachai Panitchpakdi to the Asean Global Dialogue on December 18.