DEHRADUN, Feb 7: Two senior Nepalese politicians sheltering in India on Monday asked Maoist insurgents not to hold talks with King Gyanendra and urged New Delhi to help reinstall the ousted government in Kathmandu.

The appeals came from two leaders of a group of six who took refuge in the northern Indian state of Uttaranchal after fleeing across the border from Nepal at the weekend.

"We today appeal to the Maoists not to hold talks with the king .... they should seek a democratic solution to their demands," said Dilendra Bood, a senior figure and former education minister in Nepal.

The royalist government on Monday offered to hold unconditional talks with the rebels to end the insurgency, which has claimed more than 11,000 lives since 1996.

Before King Gyanendra seized power on Feb 1, the rebels said they would negotiate only with him or his representatives through an international mediator on an agenda that included elections to a constituent assembly to draft a new constitution.

"The Maoist issue must be debated in the democratically-elected house because there are no military solutions," Mr Bood said after crossing into Uttaranchal's Champawat district on Saturday.

"We also demand the release of all leaders who have been detained after the king sacked (prime minister Sher Bahadur) Deuba and we also demand the lifting of press censorship, restoration of communication and the reestablishment of our parliament," said Mr Bood.

He was a member of the government of former prime minister G.P. Koirala, who was sacked and imprisoned in Dec 1960 by King Mahendra, the current monarch's father, and is today under house arrest.

Vinay Dhwaj Chandra, chief whip in the Nepali Congress party, in a separate interview called on India to help.

"We have come to secure moral support for the democratic movement for which we will be also meeting leaders of national political parties in India," said Mr Chandra after meeting Uttaranchal's Agriculure Minister Mahender Singh Mehra.

Mr Chandra said his party workers had distributed pamphlets in the Nepalese district of Baitari, urging the Maoist leadership to stay away from any negotiation with the king or his representatives.

"The answer to this mindless violence lies in the democratic process," Mr Chandra said by telephone from the Uttaranchal district of Pithoragarh.

King Gyanendra, who controls the army, fired the government for failing to organize elections and to hold peace talks with the Maoists.

He named a loyalist cabinet under his chairmanship, declared a state of emergency and pledged to restore multi-party democracy in three years.

Maoist guerrilla leader Prachanda branded the king a "national betrayer" and urged "pro-people forces" to oppose the government's dismissal. -AFP