Baghdad - Five Iraqis were killed and 12 injured when two bombs exploded near an electric power station in Baghdad on Wednesday, eyewitnesses said.

The blasts targeted the power station near several primary schools, including one that serves both Christian and Muslim students, witnesses told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.

During the past few weeks, several Christians have been murdered in the northern city of Mosul and thousands have fled the city after recent threats that forced them to leave their homes and jobs.

Washington - The United States and Iraq are still working on a deal outlining the legal basis for keeping US troops in Iraq after a UN mandate expires at the end of this year, the US State Department said Wednesday.

"Nothing is done until everything is done. Everything isn't done," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said. "The Iraqis are still talking among themselves. We are still talking to the Iraqis."

Baghdad- At least nine Iraqis were injured and three were killed on Wednesday in explosive attacks that took place in Baghdad, Mosul and Baquba.

A bomb went off on Wednesday morning in Baquba as a minibus was passing the Balad Roze neighbourhood.

Two people were killed in the attack and four injured.

Baquba, capital of Diyala province, is 60 kilometres north-east of Baghdad

In restive Mosul, 400 km north-west of Baghdad, two Iraqi soldiers were wounded in a bomb attack on Wednesday, a security source said.

Baghdad  - Iraq's senior Kurdish leader Massoud Barzani met with a high-profile Turkish delegation on Tuesday in Baghdad, the first direct talks between the two sides in four years.

During the meeting at Barzani's house in Baghdad, the two sides discussed bilateral relations and ways to stabilize them, the website of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan reported.

The delegation, headed by Turkey's special envoy for Iraq Murat Ozcelik, also discussed with Barzani the developments of conflicts that take place on the Kurdish-Turkish borders.

Baghdad - An Iraqi Sunni MP Tuesday accused Kurdish militias of being responsible for the recent campaign against the Christian community in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul that has driven hundreds of families from their homes.

"The Kurdish militias - and not al-Qaeda militants - are behind the attacks against Christians," Osama al-Najifi, a native of Mosul himself, told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.

Baghdad - Two Iraqi Christians were killed on Sunday in the city of Mosul after hundreds of Christians fled the city, a police source said Monday.

Unknown gunmen broke into a shop in an eastern district of Mosul and killed the shop's Christian owner and injured another shop assistant, the police source told the Voices of Iraq (VOI) news agency.

In another incident, gunmen shot a Christian man dead after they raided his house north-east of Mosul.

Around 300 Christian families are believed to have fled the city since last week.