Thailand has changed the venue for a series of summit meetings involving the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and its major trading partners in mid-December from Bangkok to the northern city of Chiang Mai for security reasons, Asian officials said Friday.

The officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said they were informed of the change of venue by Thai officials on the sidelines of the two-day Asia-Europe Meeting of leaders from the two regions that began Friday in Beijing.

Ongoing political disturbances in Bangkok involving massive protests against the ruling coalition led by the People Power Party, formed by loyalists of ousted Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, have forced the change, they said.

Chiang Mai Province, regarded a PPP stronghold, is where Prime Minister Somchai Wongsawat began his career as a judge and is where his wife is from. It is also where his daughter won a seat in last December's general election.

Since Aug. 25, antigovernment protesters in Bangkok, under the banner of the People's Alliance for Democracy, have occupied the grounds of Government House, which includes the Prime Minister's office.

Somchai's government has so far has been unable to remove them, while the police have come under severe criticism over clashes on Oct. 7 in which one protester was killed and many were badly wounded.

The annual ASEAN summit meetings involve the 10 ASEAN members -- Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam -- and major trading partners including China, Japan, South Korea, India, Australia and New Zealand.

For this year's summit meetings, scheduled for Dec. 15-18, Thailand has invited U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki Moon and the heads of the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank to join a special session to discuss how to mitigate the global financial crisis.