UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon called on Nepal`s Maoist-led government Saturday to swiftly integrate 19,000 former rebel soldiers who have been confined to camps since a 2006 peace deal.

The UN has been assisting in Nepal`s peace process under which the Maoists ended their bloody `people`s war,` won landmark polls and ousted an unpopular Hindu monarchy.

`The most immediate challenge ahead is to integrate and rehabilitate Maoist combatants,` Ban told reporters Saturday, wrapping up a 24-hour visit to the world`s newest republic.

He also urged the government `to move quickly on the formal discharge of minors` from the ranks of the former rebels.

During a UN verification process, the world body found around 3,000 of the Maoists confined to camps as part of the peace deal were under 18.

Ban arrived in Nepal on Friday, and met with the country`s new Maoist Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal, who still prefers to go by `Prachanda,` his nom-de-guerre, which means `the fierce one.`

On Saturday, the secretary general told Nepal`s lawmakers the Himalayan country had undergone a `historic transformation` since the peace agreement.

He pledged that the UN would continue to offer strong support to the peace process, and the writing of a new constitution, a cherished project of the Maoists.

Later Saturday, the UN chief was set to visit Lumbini in southern Nepal, the birthplace of Siddhartha Gautama, the founder of Buddhism, before travelling to Bangladesh where he will hold talks with leaders of the country`s interim army-backed government.

During his visit to Nepal, the UN chief stepped up diplomatic efforts to settle the conflict in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), asking his peacekeeping chief to travel to the region.

The secretary general was sending Alain Le Roy, the head of UN peacekeeping, to the region and had discussed the crisis with a number of world leaders over the past two days, a UN statement issued on Friday said.