Iraq parliament likely to convene Sunday-officials

BAGHDAD, March 9 (Reuters) Iraqi parties today agreed that the new parliament, elected last December, must convene at latest on Sunday, but the Shi'ite alliance which won the election has yet to agree to attend the session.

Iraq's constitution dictates that Sunday is the deadline for convening parliament, but sharp differences remain over who should be named prime minister and the standoff means the deadline might not be met.

''Everyone agreed that under the constitution parliament must meet by Sunday,'' one senior source in the Shi'ite Alliance said of meetings with Iraq's president and top judicial authority.

However, he said, the bloc was holding further internal meetings today to decide whether it would drop a request for the first session of the new parliament to be delayed.

''In my view, the Alliance will agree to meet on Sunday,'' the Alliance official said. Without the Alliance deputies, parliament would barely have a quorum for taking any decisions.

Sunni and Kurdish parties are pressing the Alliance, which is just short of a majority in the legislature, to drop Ibrahim al-Jaafari as its candidate for prime minister.

Despite internal divisions on the issue, the Shi'ites have resisted such demands and asked President Jalal Talabani earlier this week to delay the first session of parliament by a few days for them to debate the matter further.

Iraq's supreme judicial authority took part in today's meetings and confirmed that Sunday was the latest date under the constitution on which parliament could convene, officials said.

REUTERS KD RK2126