A spokesman says Nepal's prime minister will dissolve his Cabinet and form a unity government in a bid to break years of deadlock in crafting the country's new constitution.

Ram Rijan Yadav, an aide to Prime Minister Baburam Bhattarai, said Thursday final details were still being decided, but that the new government would include the two main opposition parties.

Nepal's parliament has until May 27 to write a new constitution, which will divide the country into new states.

The assembly was elected in 2008 with a mandate to draft the document within two years, but the deadline has been repeatedly extended amid little progress. The country's supreme court has ruled no more extensions will be allowed.

Nepal has been mostly peaceful since Maoist rebels signed a peace deal in 2006, ending their decades-long insurgency.

But the constitutional debate has become violent at times, including earlier this week when a bomb killed four people during a demonstration by protesters demanding a separate state.