"We now have one government for Kurdistan," said Adnan Mufti, the speaker of the Kurdish parliament after the 111 parliamentarians voted unanimously in favour of one administration.

Until now, Iraqi President Jalal Talabani's Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) was solely responsible for running Sulaimaniyah province, and Kurdish regional president Massoud Barzani's Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) was running Arbil and Dohuk.

With Sunday's unanimous voting, the two administrations were merged into one single administration and a new cabinet must now be formed.

Mufti said the new cabinet will have 27 ministers, with PUK and KDP each having 11 ministers and the rest representing other smaller parties.

A host of Iraqi leaders and international officials led by US ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad were present for the voting session of the Kurdish parliament Sunday.

"I pay homage to the sacrifices made by the Kurdish people, the Iraqi people and the peshmerga to create a free state in Iraq following the fall of Saddam Hussein's dictatorial regime," Khalilzad said.

Iraq's Shiite Vice President Adel Abdel Mahdi called it a "historic day, when Kurdistan gives us an example of unity and prosperity.

"To those who are afraid of a strong Kurdistan, I respond that if Kurdistan is strong, Iraq is strong. If Kurdistan is united, Iraq is united," he said.

It was still not clear whether the peshmerga forces of the two administrations were to be merged or not, but the key ministries of finance, interior and justice were to be unified.

On January 21, Talabani and Barzani had agreed to create a sole administration for the entire Kurdistan, seen by many as paving the way for an eventual autonomy for the region.

Since 1998, rivalries between the two formerly warring Kurdish factions had prevented repeated attempts to set up a joint administration.

The single administration is also expected to reaffirm Kurdish territorial claims, especially for the ethnically mixed oil-hub of Kirkuk that Kurds consider their own, which is located just south of their autonomous region.

Nechirvan Barzani, the prime minister of the Kurdish regional government and nephew of Massoud Barzani, pledged that the united administration would strengthen Kurdish interests.

"We are now going to work to be able to integrate into Kurdistan those Kurdish territories which are not a part of it today," he said.

Kurds, who make up around 20 percent of Iraq's population, are estimated to number between 25 and 35 million people and are mostly spread throughout Syria, Turkey, Iran and Iraq.