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KATHMANDU, Monday (AFP) Nepal's Prime Minister Surya Bahadur Thapa has instructed officials to invite political party leaders to the proposed third round of peace talks between the Maoists and the government, officials said.

"Accordingly, the official team on behalf of the prime minister is going to call on the major political party leaders represented in the dissolved parliament," a cabinet source said.

The major political party leaders - including the president of the Nepali Congress (NC) Girija Prasad Koirala and the general secretary of the Nepal Communist Party-United Marxist and Leninist (NCP-UML) - have already said they will not cooperate with the government.

The Maoist leader Pushpa Kamal Dahal last Thursday called on the official peace team to include the country's major political parties in the next round of talks.

Thapa has asked the team, headed by Finance Minister Prakash Chandra Lohani, to prepare to hold the talks before August 10, the source said.

The cabinet source said Thapa would attempt to meet with NC and NCP-UML leaders to seek their cooperation.

But on Sunday Koirala said any proposal to involve the five mainstream parties in the peace dialogue was designed to stop joint agitation, party sources said.

"The plan to let the political parties join the peace dialogues is a grand design to thwart our ongoing joint agitation against the king's undemocratic and unconstitutional steps of October 4 last year," Koirala said Sunday while addressing his party's senior cadres.

The five parties have been protesting jointly against King Gyanendra for unconstitutionally sacking elected prime minister Sher Bahadur Deuba on October 4. Meanwhile some 61,000 Nepalese villagers have been forced to leave their homes since Maoists launched an insurgency in 1996, a spokesman for the displaced said.

The displaced came from 52 of the country's 75 districts, the chairman of the Maoist Displaced People's Welfare Society, Ganesh Chiluwal, told reporters at a press conference.

"Of the total 61,000 displaced people including men, women and children, at least 50,000 have crossed over to India while the remaining 10,000 have come to Kathmandu," he added.

According to official figures more than 7,800 people including soldiers, police and insurgents have been killed since the Maoist rebels launched their people's war in 1996 February for a communist republic, Chiluwal said.

Of the dead, 924 were civilians including villagers, teachers and social workers, he added.

Speaking on behalf of the victims of the Maoists, Chiluwal said: "We want the government to do justice and to provide us with relief and financial help so that we can push on."

Chiluwal said 30 villagers had been were killed and 265 kidnapped since both sides declared a ceasefire on January 29.

"The Maoists have been kidnapping, harassing and killing the docile villagers for allegedly working as government informants or supporting the soldiers," he said. Commenting on the peace talks between the Maoists and the government, Chiluwal said:

"The Maoist problem can never be solved through peace dialogues unless the talks help achieve their political aims."

The Maoists want an all party government and a new constitution.

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