Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba was reappointed June 2 by King Gyanendra, who had fired the elected leadership in 2002 and handpicked a government.

But Deuba had been unable to bring parties into his new cabinet until he said on June 18 that the king had invested him with full powers.

He signed an agreement Wednesday with the communists, who were the main opposition in the dissolved parliament, and with two smaller parties on a platform for a coalition government.

A cabinet bringing in the three parties will likely be announced Thursday, said Bharat Man Adhikari, a senior communist leader.

However, the Himalayan kingdom's largest party, the Nepali Congress, has refused to join the government.

The common program released to reporters called for new talks with Maoist rebels to end the eight-year civil war, which has claimed more than 9,500 lives.

"The parties resolve that the government will pursue serious negotiations with the Maoists and show maximum flexibility," the program said.

Two previous bids to end the insurgency collapsed over Maoist demands for a special assembly to redraft the constitution. The rebels want to turn the Hindu kingdom into a secular, communist republic.

Seven more people died in the latest violence, including two Maoists killed in a clash Wednesday near Namche Bazar, the last major town on the route to Mount Everest, officials said.

The common platform also said the parties believed in the principles of a 1990 street protest movement that persuaded then king Birendra to allow an elected parliament.

"The parties agreed to work jointly to restore the full sovereign and democratic rights enshrined by the 1990 movement," it said.

The Maoists have so far refused to negotiate with Deuba, deriding him as a "puppet" of the king as he is a royal appointee.

The Nepali Congress has also rebuffed overtures from Deuba. Nepal's largest party is led by Deuba's longtime rival Girija Prasad Koirala, who expelled Deuba from the Congress in an internal dispute in 2002.