The United States is pressuring the “highest levels of the Kurdish leadership” to accept a compromise that would dictate how national elections would be held in January, a Kurdish member of Iraq’s parliament said Monday.

The United States urged the Kurdish majority in the northern oil-rich province of Kirkuk to agree to a proposal that would settle issues about the law that spells out how the election will be carried out, according to Mahmoud Othman.

Vice President Joe Biden’s spokesman, Jay Carney, said that Biden broached the issue of elections in telephone calls Sunday with Iraqi Kurdistan President Massoud Barzani and Speaker of the Parliament Ayad al-Samarrai’e.

He said, “In both calls, the vice president echoed the president’s position that timely elections are important and that we urge all parties to do their part to make them happen.”

A secure environment and political stability during and after the polls will be key as the United States looks to withdraw combat troops by August, leaving 50,000 in advisory roles, and then withdraw all US forces by the end of 2011.

(article and photo source: CNN)