SALAHEDDIN, Iraq, May 29 (AFP) - 11h14 - Kurdish leader Massoud Barzani is to head an autonomous Kurdish region in northern Iraq after a deal with his longtime rival, Iraq's new President Jalal Talabani, a Kurdish official said Sunday.
The regional parliament will also meet on June 4 for the first time since the January elections, the official told AFP.After years of political discord between Talabani and Barzani, the two agreed at a meeting on Saturday that Barzani should rule Iraq's three northern provinces for the next four years, the official said.

Talabani heads the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan party, while Barzani leads the rival Democratic Party of Kurdistan, which have effectively ruled the Kurdish part of northern Iraq outside Baghdad's control since the end of the Gulf War in 1991.

Iraq's Kurdish north is flexing its political muscle following the January election, the first since the toppling of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein in April 2003.

Talabani was named president of Iraq on April 6.