Iraq parliamentary elections on Dec 15

Baghdad: Iraq will hold parliamentary elections on December 15, the Iraq President?s office said yesterday.

The country's political transition is to take place a day after a landmark constitutional referendum.

Iraq's interim constitution, drawn up last year, stated that parliamentary elections would have to be held by Dec. 15, 2005, whether the referendum on the constitution was passed or not.

Results of the referendum are not yet known, but early returns suggest it was approved and US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told reporters she believed it had passed.

"December 15 is the day," Kamaran Padaghi, a spokesman for Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, said.

"Whether the constitution passes or not, we have to have an election by that date, either for a permanent, four-year Assembly or for a new (one-year) interim Assembly, so we have set the date."

Padaghi added that the decision was adopted by presidential decree.