King Gyanendra said in a statement that he dismissed the government in February 2005 because of its inability to hold elections while under threat from Maoist rebels.

"It is clear that the prevailing situation compelled us to take the step," he said on National Democracy Day, adding that the government "was unable to conduct general elections within the time frame stipulated by the constitution."

Still, the king said he is "morally responsible for any success or failure" of his rule, which ended in April 2006 amid protester deaths at the hands of security forces and the summary arrest and detention of hundreds of others.

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He pledged to abide by "the aspirations of the Nepalese people, on whom sovereignty is vested."

Democracy Day marks the overthrow of the 104-year-old Rana reign in 1950 by the Shah dynasty led by Gyanendra's grandfather, Tribhuvan, who promised democracy, but his successor, Mahendra, in 1960 reinstated executive royal power.

The Shah family ruled by royal decree until protests in 1990 ushered in a constitutional monarchy.

Gyanendra's comments came as the former rebels, who joined the parliament in January as part of a peace deal with political parties, stepped up calls for the monarchy to be abolished.

They accuse the king of stirring ethnic unrest in the southeast to derail the peace process and planned polls in June 2007 to rewrite the constitution and determine the fate of the monarchy.

The Maoists reached a peace deal with political parties in November 2006, which ended a decade of war that had claimed at least 13,000 lives.

A royal massacre by Crown Prince Dipendra, who gunned down his parents, King Birendra and Queen Aishwarya, and others before killing himself in a drunken rage over disapproval of his love life, brought Gyanendra to power in 2001.

Gyanendra was among the few royals away from the palace that fateful night.

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE