Baghdad - The Iraqi parliament's Sunni speaker on Tuesday said he would resign under certain conditions, minutes before he convened a closed-door emergency session with MPs to decide his fate, media reports said.

Mahmoud al-Mashhadani told lawmakers before the session that in return for his resignation he wanted to be named head of a human rights association, Al-Arabiya news channel reported.

He also asked that his successor be chosen from the Sunni Iraqi Accordance Bloc (Tawafuk), Voices of Iraq (VOI) news agency reported.

Al-Mashhadani announced his resignation after lawmakers engaged in a quarrel over an Iraqi reporter who threw his shoes at US President George W Bush at a press conference on December 14.

He has been locked in a dispute with lawmakers, some of whom have accused him of insulting them in parliament.

A decision on al-Mashhadani's fate could in turn resolve a political impasse that has stalled the decision on whether to allow British and other non-US troops to remain in Iraq beyond December 31.

On Monday the vote was postponed after clashes erupted over al- Mashhadani's resignation. Opposition lawmakers had given al- Mashhadani until Tuesday to either resign or be sacked.

All non-US forces are expected to leave Iraq at the end of the year, when a United Nations mandate permitting the presence of foreign troops in the country expires.

The resolution covers the approximately 4,000 British troops in the country, as well as smaller forces from countries including Australia, Romania, and El Salvador.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said this month that his government will keep its forces in Iraq until mid-2009.

On Monday, the Iraqi Criminal Court set the trial of Montazer al- Zaidi, the reporter who threw his shoes at Bush but missed, for December 31.

Al-Zaidi, a reporter for the Cairo-based Baghdadia channel, faces seven to 10 years behind bars if found guilty of "aggression against a president". dpa