BANGKOK - NEW THAI Prime Minister Somchai Wongsawat said on Friday he had opened a dialogue with protesters who have been occupying his official compound for three weeks, in a bid to end a campaign that has alarmed investors.

Mr Somchai, a brother-in-law of ex-premier Thaksin Shinawatra, declined to discuss details of what he had said to leaders of the anti-government People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD), but said he was optimistic there would be positive results.

'We all are Thais and we should not hate each other for ever. Our differences on ideas can be ironed out through dialogue,' Mr Somchai told reporters.

Parliament elected Mr Somchai, a 61-year-old former judge and government bureaucrat, as prime minister on Wednesday to replace Samak Sundaravej, who had to step down last week after being found guilty of a conflict of interest.

Mr Somchai says national reconciliation is his first priority, but his close links with Thaksin could ensure continued tension with the PAD, whose anti-government campaign in late 2005 led to the bloodless coup against Thaksin that followed in 2006.

A PAD leader said on Thursday that Mr Somchai had called Sondhi Limthongkul, the lynchpin of the anti-Thaksin campaign, hours after his appointment as prime minister had received royal approval.

Another PAD leader said on Friday that one of the PAD's demands would be for Mr Somchai to say how his government would bring Thaksin, who skipped bail last month to London, back to Thailand to be tried on graft charges going through the courts.

'Mr Somchai must state clearly that he will not drop the Thaksin lawsuits from the legal system,' Mr Pipob Dhongchai told reporters.

The businessmen, academics and activists grouped in the PAD paint themselves as champions of clean government and defenders of the monarchy.

In a telephone interview with Reuters on Thursday, Thaksin said the corruption charges were part of a conspiracy by political opponents and had to be 'resolved by political means'.