Kathmandu, Sept. 6 (Reuters): Nepal’s King Gyanendra has cancelled a trip to New York next week to attend the UN General Assembly, an official said today, apparently rattled by mounting opposition to his taking power.

“He is not going to go now,” a top government official said. “This is taking into account the current situation in the country.” He did not elaborate.

The decision came three days after Nepal’s Maoist rebels unilaterally announced a three-month ceasefire.

Days before the guerrillas announced the ceasefire, Nepal’s seven main political parties said they would consider joining hands with the rebels to launch joint protests against King Gyanendra for sacking the government earlier this year and taking power.

The king dismissed the land-locked nation’s multi-party government on February 1, saying it had not been able to control the Maoist rebellion.

More than 12,500 people have died in the Maoist revolt since 1996 and hundreds more have disappeared.

The kingdom’s political parties have opposed the king’s first trip to the UN saying he was not the true representative of the nation, wedged between India and China. The king met UN secretary -general Kofi Annan in Indonesia in April. In July, Annan sent his envoy Lakhdar Brahimi to Nepal who advised the king to quickly restore democracy.

Analysts said the widespread international disapproval against the assumption of power could have forced King Gyanendra to cancel his visit.

“The cancellation is because of the legitimacy question raised by political parties at home and the hostility he was going to face there from the international community,” said Yubaraj Ghimire, editor of Samay, a weekly magazine.

The royalist government has also said it could not fully trust the Maoists on the ceasefire.

”The declaration of a ceasefire for three months has drawn the attention of His Majesty's Government,” Information and Communications Minister Tanka Dhakal said in a statement late on Monday.

”The government cannot be quite confident about the ceasefire,” he said.“The past experience shows the ceasefire never sustained.”

The Maoists broke previous truces in 2001 and 2003 after peace talks with the government collapsed amid a row over the future of the monarchy.

The Maoists want to replace the monarchy with a communist republic.