The Iraqi Kurds are now the "arbiters" of politics in Iraq and can win the "big prize" of autonomy, Hoshyar Zebari, Iraq's interim foreign minister, has said.

Mr Zebari, a leading official in the Kurdistan Democratic party, said he expected the Kurdish list to take 75-85 of 275 parliamentary seats and hold the balance between the main Shia list, topped by Abd al-Aziz Hakim, and the list of Iyad Allawi, the interim prime minister.

"We will be the arbiters of many key decisions," he said in an interview with the Financial Times.

Since the high Kurdish turnout in Sunday's election, the KDP has been consulting the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), the second main party on the list.

Mr Zebari said the two parties would keep "a coherent and united [Kurdish] position - if we are going to side, hypothetically, with the Shia list, it is because they are going to run the government according to what we want. We will pick and choose".

Mr Zebari refused to "reveal our cards" on whom the Kurds might support as prime minister.

Neither would he reveal which senior position the Kurds would seek. However, he agreed the post of parliamentary speaker would be "very important, a key position" as the parliament drew up over the next 11 months a new constitution, which the Kurdish leaders want to recognise the substantial autonomy the Kurds have exercised since 1991.

Mr Zebari said the election had given the Kurdish leaders a renewed mandate and he attacked the Kurdish referendum movement, which in December gave a 1.7m-signature petition for independence to the United Nations and on Sunday gathered unofficial votes for the cause.

He said the movement questioned "the credibility of the Kurdish leadership when we need to speak with one language . . . [in] going for the big prize of a democratic, federal and united Iraq".

Mr Zebari criticised US management of Iraqi politics since May 2003, when Washington rejected a proposal from the former opposition to Saddam Hussein for the early establishment of a sovereign government.

"Every step now is a repetition of what we [the former opposition] agreed then, but after so much blood has been shed, so many resources wasted, so much time spent in crisis," he said.

But Mr Zebari disagreed with those who argued in the election for a timetable for withdrawing US-led forces.

He said to do so without a "viable Iraqi force" would "give motivation and encouragement to the enemy".

Mr Zebari said the mandate of US-led forces under UN Security Council resolution 1546 lasted until a new government was elected under a new constitution in December.

"Then it would be up to the government to decide whether to reach a status-of-forces agreement, as many countries have done, or to say, thank you very much [goodbye]," he said.