Talabani to veto election bill

BAGHDAD, July 23 (UPI) -- Iraq's provincial elections likely will be delayed until next year after Iraqi President Jalal Talabani said Wednesday he would veto an elections bill.

Talabani said the provincial elections measure was unconstitutional because it was approved by only 127 of the Iraqi Parliament's 275 members Tuesday, The Washington Post reported. Passage came after the Parliament's Kurdish delegation walked out in protest, the U.S. newspaper said.

"The presidency council will never pass this law," Talabani said in a statement issued by his office.

The threatened veto by Talabani, who is Kurdish, was viewed as a setback for the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and the Bush administration. They had touted a preliminary election law passed earlier as a sign of political progress in the war-torn Middle Eastern nation.

Iraqi political factions are wrangling over the status of Kirkuk, an oil-rich city in northern Iraq that the Kurds consider part of their semi-autonomous domain.

Talabani said in his statement the legislation would have "made enormous damage to the national unity."