BAGHDAD (AFP) -- Iraq on Thursday postponed provincial elections due in October after MPs failed to agree the necessary legislation in time, in a blow to U.S.-backed efforts to consolidate national reconciliation.

""I can confirm to you that we have lost the chance to hold the elections in October,"" Qassem al-Aboudi, administrative director of Iraq's electoral commission, told AFP after a meeting with the United Nations.
The country had been due to go to the polls on October 1, but the long-awaited legislation to govern the ballot has faced repeated delays over the political treatment of the disputed northern oil province of Kirkuk.
The complex issues over who will control the energy-rich province, claimed by both Arabs and Kurds, has dogged passage of the provincial elections bill since it was ratified by the cabinet in April, despite U.S. efforts to pressure Baghdad.
""We regret they were not able to complete the work on it,"" said Mirembe Nantongo, U.S. embassy spokeswoman in Baghdad. ""We don't feel the election law should be held hostage to the issue of Kirkuk.""
Thursday's decision was a major setback for both Washington and the United Nations which viewed the ballot as critical to consolidating Iraq's fledgling political process and reconciling its deeply divided ethnic groups.
""We cannot hold an election in October because we need three months to prepare for the polls after the election law is passed,"" commission member Hamdiya al-Husseinia said.
Said Arikat, spokesman for the United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq, told AFP that holding the election on time would now be ""impossible"" and that the outlook for an election at all this year was at best uncertain.
""If the law is not passed in the next few days, it will be very, very difficult to hold the election before the end of the year,"" he said, adding that the UN would work to bring about an agreement.
Parliament broke for summer recess on Wednesday without passing the contentious legislation despite a new UN proposal which called for a year-long freeze on issues related to Kirkuk.
The proposal, which called for the polls to be postponed in Kirkuk but go ahead as scheduled in Iraq's 17 other provinces, failed to win approval from various Arab and Turkmen factions.
The United Nations suggested the elections in Kirkuk be delayed until December 2009, thus giving Iraq's various political factions time to hammer out new terms to a power-sharing arrangement for the region.
Parliament speaker Mahmud al-Mashhadani ordered MPs to continue working on the draft until the body reconvenes on September 9, but factional infighting had long cast doubt on the passage of the law.
""It was clear since July that it would be impossible to hold the election in October,"" Arikat said.
On Thursday, several hundred Turkmen took to the streets waving Iraqi flags and calling for the removal of the United Nations envoy for Iraq, Staffan de Mistura, accusing him of favouring the Kurds, an AFP reporter witnessed.
""We ask the UN to investigate Kirkuk events, and to change its 'Kurdish representative' Staffan de Mistura in Iraq,"" one banner read.