The election had been due to be held in October last year, but the two main parties in northern Iraq, the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), failed to reach agreement on changes to constituency boundaries.

Instead the outgoing regional parliament extended its mandate for another year and set November 18 as the new election date.

But that date fell foul of the Iraqi Electoral Commission which said it was too close to the December 18 date set for provincial elections in the rest of Iraq.

Regional president Nechirvan Barzani's spokesman Dilshad Shihab said the February date had been agreed "in consultation with the political parties of the Kurdistan region".

The Kurdish authorities had come under mounting pressure to set the election date after Iraq's supreme court ruled the outgoing parliament's extension of its mandate "unconstitutional" and annulled all legislation it has passed since last autumn.