BAGHDAD, Nov 26: Iraq plans to hold a July referendum on a controversial military pact allowing US troops to remain for another three years that parliament is expected to adopt on Thursday in a delayed vote.

“It is not only the Iraqi parliament that has a role in overseeing this agreement, but the Iraqi people,” Iraq’s top negotiator Muwafaq al-Rubaie told Al-Arabiya television, adding that the referendum would be on July 30. Rubaie, who also serves as Iraq’s national security advisor, spoke to the Dubai-based network shortly after parliament delayed a vote on the pact to Thursday amid a flurry of last-minute talks.

He later insisted Washington would have to accept the decision to hold the referendum, telling that “it is an Iraqi issue and the Americans have to understand our requirements.” The 275-member assembly had been expected to endorse the agreement on Wednesday, but its approval could have diminished importance if the agreement is subjected to a popular vote seven months after coming into force.

“If the Iraqi people reject the agreement in the referendum the government will have two choices, either to cancel it or renegotiate it,” MP Reza Jawad Taqi said.

Iraq can cancel the agreement at any time as long as it gives the United States one year’s notice, so if the agreement is rejected in the referendum and then cancelled it would not come to an end until the summer of 2010.

The pact can also be amended by mutual consent, according to the official Arabic version of the pact.

The White House said it was still hopeful the accord would be approved, without commenting on the referendum plan.

“It’s good for both Iraq and the United States, and so we’ll keep an eye on what they are doing and hopefully they’ll be able to get it across the goal line,” White House spokesman Tony Fratto said.

Parliament briefly convened in the afternoon to announce it would delay the final vote until Thursday at 10:00 am (0700 GMT).

“The general atmosphere indicates there will be an agreement, the leaders have agreed on all the points under discussion except for one,” parliament speaker Mahmud Mashhadani said, without elaborating.

The pact has the support of the Shiite United Iraqi Alliance (UIA), the Kurdish alliance and a number of independent MPs — enough for it to pass with slightly more than the requisite simple majority of 138 votes.

But deputy parliamentary speaker Khaled al-Attiya said the government and the UIA were hoping to assemble a broader coalition.

“We do not want to pass this agreement with a difference of two or three or four votes,” he told AFP on Tuesday.

Attiya and other officials have said the demands made by the blocs in closed-door sessions do not concern the agreement itself, which was approved by Iraq’s cabinet with the support of the main Shiite, Sunni, and Kurdish blocs.

A spokesman for the National Concord Front -- the main Sunni bloc with 39 votes -- said lawmakers were trying to meet its demands for political reforms linked to national reconciliation and the holding of a referendum.

The Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), a powerful party led by Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, came out in support of many Sunni demands including the call for a referendum, in a statement posted on its website.—AFP