BAGHDAD, June 4 (AFP) - 14h56 - Iraq's Kurdish regional parliament held its first session on Saturday with the Iraqi president urging the Kurds to set an example of unity to the nation torn by sectarian strife.In the capital, Iraqi security forces claimed further anti-insurgent successes while the man due to judge Saddam Hussin said the deposed dictator's trial would begin within two months.

Iraq's first Kurdish President Jalal Talabani addressed lawmakers in the northern city of Arbil in Arabic, urging Kurdish deputies to create a democratic and federal system.

"Your democratically elected parliament faces a critical period in the history of Iraq," Talabani said.

"Our sacred task is to draft a permanent constitution that guarantees equality for all of Iraqi society," he said, reiterating the need for "all components of Iraqi society" to help draw up the vital document, due to be put to referendum in October.

Most Iraqi Kurds are Sunni Muslims, making up nearly 20 percent of Iraq's 26-million population, and believe strongly in Iraq's federal future.

The regional parliament's first session opened more than four months after general elections and following talks between Talabani and Kurdish leader Massoud Barzani, who was recently chosen as the autonomous region's president.

UN envoy Ashraf Qazi also addressed the parliament, congratulating deputies for their success, but also urging them to show restraint.

The Kurdish people, he said, "suffered political isolation, economic deprivations and brutal repression including genocidal onslaughts during the era of the previous regime".

But now, he said, Kurdish leaders "have the opportunity, capability and dare I say obligation to provide a beacon of hope, to provide an example to the rest of Iraq."

Talabani heads the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), while Barzani leads the rival Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), two groups that have effectively ruled the Kurdish part of northern Iraq since Saddam's forces were barred, by the US and British military, from reaching the region after the 1991 Gulf War.

"Saddam is to appear before the Iraq Special Tribunal in two months, as soon as the charges are legally finalised," judge Raed Juhi told the Saudi Asharq al-Awsat newspaper.

Talabani earlier this week said he hoped Saddam would face trial within two months.

Juhi said that 12 charges had been finalised and that the deposed leader would be tried alone in some cases and alongside aides in others.

"The ex-president's morale is low because he realises the volume of accusations for which he will be judged," Juhi said.

"Saddam Hussein has his complete mental faculties and has been neither constrained nor pressured during questioning," he said of the man captured in December 2003.

Saddam is being held by US forces at a base near Baghdad along with 11 former high-ranking regime members and faces an array of charges of crimes against humanity, including alleged use of chemical weapons against the Kurds.

Authorities in Baghdad meanwhile hailed what they called the continued success of Operation Lightning, designed to snare insurgents in the city, saying that 12 more suspected rebels had been detained and arms caches seized.

"The Iraqi Army is proving each day that their performance and ability to coordinate operations is improving," said Captain Brendan Hobbs.

Almost 700 Iraqis were killed throughout the country in May, while Iraqi authorities said earlier that more than 700 insurgents had been detained and 28 killed in the operation so far.

Up to 40,000 army troops and police personnel were said to take part in the sweep, but were not in clear evidence in Baghdad's streets.

Three Iraqi soldiers were killed in a suicide car bomb attack on their checkpoint in Balad, north of Baghdad, police said, while a policeman was shot dead by unknown attackers in Samarra, further north.

Another Iraqi was killed as he drove his car in southwestern Baghdad early Saturday, with his attackers later wounding two policemen after they rigged the victim's car with explosives, an interior ministry source said.

A joint US-Iraqi operation also unearthed dozens of artifacts looted from Baghdad's National Museum during the chaos following the March 2003 US-led invasion.

The US military described the haul as "a treasure chest of Iraqi historical significance."