Their talks came as Paul Bremer, the American overseer for Iraq, stepped up his efforts to woo tribal and religious leaders while moving ahead with plans for an interim administration.
Most of the formerly exiled politicians on a seven-member leadership council huddled on the sidelines of an anniversary session here of the Kurdish regional parliament also attended by British and US officials.
"The talks will go on for several days afterwards in Arbil to discuss the current situation, forming a government and contacts with the US," said Aref Tayfur, Baghdad representative of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), which controls Arbil.
Tayfur said the KDP and other groups on the council had been increasingly sidelined by Bremer since he scrapped a promised national conference which they had hoped to lead in favour of informal US-led consultations to select an Iraqi administration.
"In our last meeting with Bremer (on Friday), he brought additional people to counterweigh our influence," said Tayfur. He added the KDP was nonetheless realistic about the control Iraqis could expect over the process.
"We don't really have a pro or con position on the US intervening in the Iraqi political process," he said.
"They rule the house, they are the occupiers, so it's only natural that they should exert power. What the KDP cares about is the formation of an Iraqi government as soon as possible".
Other former exiled groups have taken a stronger line.
The main Shiite Muslim faction, the Iran-backed Supreme Assembly of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (Sairi), told Bremer they could not take part in an interim government if its membership was not chosen by Iraqis alone.
Sairi spokesperson Hamed al-Bayati denied the movement's position was a "boycott threat".
"It's just a statement of our policy," he said Sunday.
"We can't take part in a body which isn't seen to be either elected or selected exclusively by Iraqis. Anything less would be seen by the whole region as a puppet government".
Sairi representatives stayed away from yesterday's talks in Arbil, but Bayati rejected Bremer's suggestions that there were differences between his formerly Iran-based group and the other factions over the US plans.
Sairi had been unable to attend because it did not receive an invitation from KDP leader Massoud Barzani until Friday, Bayati said.
He said all the factions on the leadership council were agreed the selection of an interim administration should be an "Iraqi process," although they had yet to reach a common policy on how to react if Bremer stuck by his guns.
Amid concern in Washington about Sairi's influence among Iraq's Shiite majority, the US administrator has intensified efforts in recent days to reach out to traditional leaders in the mainly Shiite south.
In a whirlwind helicopter tour of the southern countryside Sunday, Bremer ate lamb and rice with tribal sheikhs and visited a moderate Shiite cleric whose university has a Christian teacher and has even enrolled one Jewish student. – Sapa-AFP.
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