He is holding talks with regional president Massud Barzani and Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, amid US pressure for the central government and Kurdish authorities to settle their differences before American troops pull out in 2011.

The meeting comes hot on the heels of Kurdish parliamentary and presidential elections that returned Barzani to power, and less than six months before general elections across the country in January.

Arriving at Sulaimaniyah airport on Sunday morning, Maliki kissed Barzani on the cheek, the traditional greeting in the Arab world.

His talks with Talabani and Barzani were being held at Dukan, a summer resort 75 kilometres (50 miles) northwest of Sulaimaniyah, Kurdistan's second largest city.

Television footage showed Talabani sitting at a desk in a large conference room, with Maliki, whose last trip to the region was in June 2007, to his right and Barzani to his left, the Iraqi and Kurdish flags behind them.

"This visit is a very positive point and opens dialogue between the two (parties) in order to solve the problems between the central government and Kurdistan," senior Kurdish MP Mahmoud Othman said.

Kurdish demands to expand their autonomous region in northern Iraq to include the oil-rich ethnically mixed province of Kirkuk and other areas along Kurdistan's border with the rest of Iraq have triggered an increasingly heated war of words with Maliki's Shiite-led central government.

Barzani insisted in campaigning ahead of the July 25 elections that he would not "compromise" on the Kurds' long-standing claims to the disputed oil hub of Kirkuk.

On a visit to Iraq last week, US Defence Secretary Robert Gates urged Arab and Kurdish leaders to settle their political differences before American troops leave the country.

Under a security accord signed between Baghdad and Washington in November, US forces are due to withdraw by the end of 2011.

The US military is closely monitoring the situation and has set up liaison offices with commanders of Kurdish militia and Baghdad government forces to try to prevent tensions from escalating, said the top American commander in Iraq, General Ray Odierno.

Maliki will also be seeking to shore up support from Kurdish parties in the run-up to next year's election, as his own grouping is unlikely to be able to win enough seats on its own to secure a majority in parliament.

Kurdish leaders, meanwhile, are likely to be keen to court allies in Baghdad as the United States -- a close ally of Arbil -- reduces its military presence in Iraq.

Barzani's Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and Talabani's Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) have for decades dominated politics in Kurdistan, and their joint list secured 57 percent of the vote in the parliamentary poll.

But their stranglehold over the region was challenged in the election, as two smaller groups fared better than expected and look set to form the region's first credible opposition in parliament.