Kathmandu: Nepal's ousted king Gyanendra is packing his belongings and planning to leave his palace in Kathmandu tomorrow in line with a two-week deadline, a prominent newspaper editor told AFP today.

"According to our sources, the King is packing up his personal belongings to move out of the palace," Kishore Shrestha, editor of the Nepali-language weekly newspaper Jana Aastha, told AFP.

The paper is regarded as one of the best sources of information in Nepal on what is going on inside the heavily guarded royal palace.

The king has yet to make any comment on a historic constitutional assembly vote late Wednesday that abolished his 240-year-old dynasty.

"He is said to be leaving the palace tomorrow for Nagarjun," a royal hunting lodge on the outskirts of Kathmandu, or another private home inside the capital, said Shrestha.

The king has been given two weeks to vacate the sprawling pink palace in the heart of Kathmandu, and the building will be transformed into a national museum, the country s constituent assembly decided yesterday.

The abolition of the monarchy capped a peace deal between fiercely republican Maoists and mainstream political parties.

Their 2006 peace pact ended a bloody civil war that killed at least 13,000 people.

Source : PTI