Talabani Demands Top Job In Iraqi Government

Talabani also said that the future of the northern city of Kirkuk, which is not part of the Kurdish autonomous region, would play a key role in any alliance talks with other Iraqi parties.

"I am the candidate for the Kurdish democratic list for one of the two posts of responsibility," Talabani told reporters after a meeting with the other main Kurdish leader, Massoud Barzani.

The count from Sunday's historic election has not been completed but talks are already underway between rival parties.

Leaders from the majority Shiite Muslim community have said they expect to provide the prime minister, who will lead the government, with a Sunni Muslim president.

The Sunni community has fueled Iraq's insurgency and concerns abound about how to win the minority religious group's full backing of the next government. Sunni political figures greeted the news with a wait- and- see attitude.

Talabani, head of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), and Barzani, leader of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), formed an alliance for the national vote held on Sunday.

They are expected to easily win the vote in the autonomous Kurdish region where the population also chose three provincial councils and an assembly for the autonomous region.

Barzani will be the sole candidate for head of the regional Kurdish government, which takes in the provinces of Sulaimaniyah, controlled by the PUK, and Arbil and Dohuk, which are under his party's control.

"The question of joining the city of Kirkuk to Kurdistan will be primordial in negotiations for any alliance with another Iraqi political force," said Talabani.

Kurdish leaders cherish the dream of making the key oil city, which lies just south of the autonomous region, part of northern Kurdistan.

The city is divided between a majority Kurd population, Arabs and Turkmens. Former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein persecuted the Kurds and sought an Arab domination of Kirkuk through a population transfer.

Arab community leaders have complained about the election in Kirkuk saying that Kurds from outside the city were deliberately allowed to register there to tip the vote in the favour of Kurdish parties.

Talabani has told the Kurdish press that a higher-than-expected turnout across Kurdish areas was set to give his alliance one quarter of the seats in the new assembly.

"Turnout exceeded our hopes and reached 90 percent in some areas," he told his party's Kurdistani Nwe (New Kurdistan) newspaper. "We're expecting to take 25 percent of the seats."

Turkey is vehemently opposed to Kurdish ambitions to make Kirkuk the new capital of their autonomous region, fearing the province's oil wealth will give them the resources to break away and encourage separatist ambitions among Turkish Kurds.

Meanwhile, Sunni leaders were reserved about Talabani's announcement.

"Anybody who wins seats can announce his candidacy and Talabani is an important leader who chaired the Governing Council (for a month) and who has the prerequisite experience," Industry Minister Hajem al-Hassani told AFP.

Hassani, running on the national assembly candidate list of interim President Ghazi al-Yawar, a Sunni, said it was too early to discuss the impact of Talabani's announcement.

A spokesman for the Islamic Party which dropped out of the elections, citing security concerns, also downplayed the announcement.