MOSCOW—Kyrgyzstan President Askar Akayev, who fled the country last month after demonstrators stormed his offices, signed a resignation agreement Monday, a key step toward restoring stability in the Central Asian nation. Kyrgyz lawmakers said.

The ex-Soviet state has been in turmoil since an anti-Akayev demonstration on March 24 grew into a clash outside the presidential administration building. Riot police guarding the building fled and protesters rushed inside. Akayev surfaced in Russia several days later.

Akayev signed the agreement at the Kyrgyz Embassy in Moscow and made a recording, apologizing to the people, that will be read to the parliament and be broadcast on television in Kyrgyzstan, said lawmaker Tashkul Kereksizov, who helped arrange the deal.

The resignation will be effective Tuesday, lawmakers said.

By stepping down, he would remove the last major obstruction to holding new presidential elections, tentatively scheduled for June 26. If Akayev did not step down, the legitimacy of such elections would be open to question.

“Akayev has made an important decision. The people needed it very much,” Kereksizov said.

“The revolution has taken place, the new government is working, but this document is necessary” to make it legal, Kereksizov said. He said parliament would endorse Akayev’s resignation Tuesday.

Kereksizov said Akayev recognized the new authorities.

“He said he will not confront the new government in either words or deeds and wished it success,” the lawmaker said.

In his address to the nation, Akayev “listed the nation’s achievements during his 14 1/2-year presidency, but also apologized to people who bore grudges against him,” said Bermet Bukasheva, an aide to parliament speaker Omurbek Tekebayev, who headed the delegation to Moscow.

The 60-year-old Akayev became leader of Kyrgyzstan in 1990, a year before it became independent in the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union. He was regarded as the most reformist and liberal of the ex-Soviet Central Asian leaders. During his first years as president, Kyrgyzstan acquired the image of an island of democracy in a region noted for heavy-handed autocratic leadership.

In recent years, opponents complained that he had become increasingly authoritarian and repressive. The revolt capped weeks of protests by opposition supporters who accused Akayev of manipulating the results of parliamentary elections to ensure a compliant legislature.

After he fled, the political crisis deepened as the previous and newly elected parliaments competed for legitimacy. There were two nights of looting and gunfire in the capital in which at least three people were killed.

The chaos began to ebb last week after the previous parliament ceded authority.