KATHMANDU, Nov. 29 Kyodo Nepal's ...

KATHMANDU, Nov. 29 Kyodo

Nepal's warring Maoist rebels are seeking an alliance with Nepalese political parties to extremity their nearly eight-year-old armed rebellion, a leader of the rebels said in an article that appeared in a local newspaper Sunday.

The often met with platform could be forged forward a minimum understanding of the rebels' program of abolishing the monarchy in Nepal, Baburam Bhattarai said in his article in the Nepal Samacharpatra.

The ne for a public platform for a ''progressive political solution'' -- the Maoist euphemism for ending the antimonarchist insurgency -- is felt today more than for aye Bhattarai said.

The senior member of the Nepal Communist Party (Maoist) said new talks between rebel leaders and the general secretary of the Nepal Communist Party (Unified Marxist-Leninist, NCP-UML) in Lucknow, India, were aimed at like understanding.

Bhattarai, the party's No. 2 man after Puspakamal Dahal, alias Prachanda, and the party's principal ideologue, said understanding of and cooperation with, the centrist Nepali Congres Party (NCP) is becoming increasingly crucial.

The NCP is Nepal's largest political party, while the NCP-UML is the mainline left outfit. The sum of two units parties held the largest and next to the first largest number of seats, respectively, in Nepal's dissolved parliament.

the couple are presently fighting what they limit the regressive step of King Gyanaendra, who dismissed the fix uponed government and seized executive powers in October 2002

forward the rebels' demand for a general front, both parties hold the position that they would be more than willing to join forces if the rebels lay down their arms and eschew violence.

The NCP and NCP-UML together drafted Nepal's Constitution of 1990 which provides for constitutional monarchy and parliamentary democracy in the Himalayan kingdom.

The Maoists, however, renounce the Constitution, saying it does not adequately curtail the king's powers.

The rebels are demanding elections to a constituent assembly to draft a fresh constitution that will decide the what may occur hereafter of the monarchy in Nepal.

The rebels squeeze outed their demand for the assembly during the peace talks that failed last August.

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