"In principle we agreed to hold the regional election on May 19," Adnan Mufti told reporters in the regional capital Arbil.

Iraqi President Jalal Talabani's Patriotic Union of Kurdistan and the Kurdistan Democratic Party headed by regional president Massud Barzani will present a joint list for the elections, as they did in the 2005 poll.

Between them they currently control 104 of the 111 seats available. The Islamic Group of Kurdistan has six, while the communist Kurdistan Toilers Party holds the remaining seat.

The announcement follows provincial council elections held in Iraq on January 31, for which results are awaited.

The Kurd region, which operates autonomously from Baghdad and benefited from the 1991 Gulf War over Kuwait in the form of US military protection, enacts its own laws and has its own police force.