KIRKUK (Iraq) - US vice president-elect Joe Biden, on a trail-blazing visit to Iraq ahead of Barack Obama's inauguration, met on Tuesday with Iraq's prime minister before travelling to the troubled city of Kirkuk.

After talks with Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki in Baghdad, the Delaware senator arrived in the oil-rich city where he met governor Abdul Rahman Mustafa and his deputy Rakan Saeed al-Juburi.

'Solving the main issues of Kirkuk is a major issue for the United States government in Iraq,' Mr Biden told a group of journalists at the airport.

'The new administration is very concerned about the conflict in Kirkuk and I call on all political parties in Iraq to find a consensus that will resolve this conflict.'

The oil-rich Kirkuk province, with 900,000 inhabitants, is an ethnically mixed region made up of Turkmen, Arabs, Christians and Kurds. But the Kurds have demanded it be added to their autonomous region in the country's north.

Although the number of violent attacks in Iraq as a whole has dropped sharply this year, attacks have continued regularly in the province, and last month a suicide bomber killed at least 55 people and wounded 95 at an eatery.

Mr Biden met Mr Maliki after arriving in Baghdad from Afghanistan via Kuwait on Monday, and first holding talks with Iraqi President Jalal Talabani and Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari.

Travelling with Republican Senator Lindsay Graham, Mr Biden also stopped early on Monday in Iraq's southern city of Basra where he met with British military officials, the US military said. Britain has a deployment of about 4,000 troops there.

Discussions with Mr Maliki in Baghdad focused on the future of US forces in Iraq and improving economic relations with the administration of president-elect Barack Obama, who will take over on January 20 from President George W. Bush.

'Talks during the meeting reviewed security and political progress... including establishment of the law and the building of Iraqi armed forces that will take over responsibility after the withdrawal of foreign troops from Iraq,' said a statement from Mr Maliki's office.

The United States, which invaded Iraq in 2003 and toppled president Saddam Hussein, currently has 146,000 soldiers in Iraq but is increasingly taking a back seat to a more assertive Iraqi police and army.

Under the terms of an agreement signed between Baghdad and Washington in November, US combat forces will remain in the country until the end of 2011, but operate under the authority of the Iraqi government.

The agreement requires that US troops obtain Iraqi permission for all military operations, and that they hand over the files of all detainees in US custody to the Iraqi justice system, which will decide their fate.

For his part, Mr Biden, outgoing chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, reiterated US support for Iraq's fledgling democratic political process and the continuing steps to restore its sovereignty.

He stressed the importance of coordination and collaboration between Baghdad and Washington as both sides implement the bilateral military accord that took effect on January 1.

Mr Obama has promised to pull one or two combat brigades out of Iraq every month over a 16-month period, leaving a small security force of unspecified size remaining.

Unlike Mr Obama, Mr Biden was initially in favour of the 2003 invasion, but has been critical of the handling of the subsequent years in the conflict since Saddam Hussein's ouster.

Mr Maliki also said that following the recent improvements in security, Iraq would seek greater self-reliance as it strives to reconstruct its war-shattered economy, government and legal institutions. -- AFP