Iraq parliament to convene next week: Official

The original date was initially decided as August 12

Iraq's parliament will meet next week to work on forming a new government, an official said today, reversing a decision to adjourn until August despite a sweeping offencive by militants.

"The new date will be Sunday, July 13, instead of August 12," an employee in the office of presiding MP Mahdi Hafez told AFP.

British ambassador to Baghdad Simon Collis and UN Iraq envoy Nickolay Mladenov also both gave July 13 as the date for the next session in posts on Twitter.

More than two months after an election in which Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's camp won the most seats, though not a majority, parliament has yet to make progress on filling the top three positions, which are split between the Shiite Arab, Sunni Arab and Kurdish communities.

A parliament session last week ended in chaos, with MPs trading heckles and threats before some eventually walked out, forcing an adjournment and preventing the election of a speaker as required by the constitution.

The political chaos comes with Iraq facing a jihadist-led offensive which has overrun large areas of five provinces and which the security forces have struggled to stem.