Prime Minister-designate Nuri al-Maliki said today he hoped to form in the next two days Iraq's first full-term government since Saddam Hussein was toppled.
Ending five months of stalemate since a December election, Mr Maliki, a Shia Muslim, said he expected to assemble "today or tomorrow" a government of national unity that Washington sees as the best hope to avert a sectarian civil war.
Maliki, from the ruling Shia Alliance, said: "We have done 90 per cent, but I want to give more time to the leaders [of political blocs] to finish what is left."
The apparent breakthrough, following heavy pressure from the United States, comes after rival Shia, Kurdish and Sunni groups agreed to fill the sensitive ministries of interior and defence with figures free of links with militias, Mr Maliki said.
Despite Mr Maliki's optimistic assessment, efforts to form Iraq's government have become bogged down in the past in bargaining among the main ethnic and sectarian factions.
Among those ministry posts still undecided were oil, trade and transport - key to rebuilding Iraq's crippled economy.
Under a constitutional deadline, Mr Maliki has until May 22nd to present a cabinet to parliament, which is to sit on Wednesday.
Although seen as a Shia hawk when named last month, Mr Maliki insisted he was ready to reach out to Sunni rebels who laid down their arms and joined the US-backed political process.