BAGHDAD, Iraq – Iraqi politicians set March 16 for the opening of the country’s first democratically elected Parliament in modern history as a deal hardened yesterday to name Jalal Talabani, a leader of the minority Kurds, to the presidency.

The more powerful prime minister’s job will go to Ibrahim al-Jaafari, a deeply conservative Shiite who leads the Islamic Dawa party. His nomination, which the Kurds have agreed to, has been endorsed by the most powerful Shiite cleric in Iraq – Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani.

“This was one of our firm demands and we agreed on it previously. The agreement states that Jalal Talabani takes the presidential post and one of the United Iraqi Alliance members takes the prime minister’s post,” Mr. Talabani spokesman, Azad Jundiyan, said.

He added, however, that the clergy backed United Iraqi Alliance also reached a preliminary agreement with the Kurds on their other conditions – including extending their territories to include Kirkuk.

Mr. Jundiyan said they wanted the deal on paper before going though with it, while alliance officials, including Ahmad Chalabi, said those negotiations were not over.

Baghdad’s new Shiite governor, Ali Fadhil al-Imseer, took office yesterday to become the city’s first democratically elected municipal official since the fall of Saddam Hussein. Provincial and municipal elections were held alongside national ones on January 30.

In Mosul, 225 miles north of Baghdad, gunmen killed a prominent Sunni Arab politician. A lawyer and former member of Mosul’s previous city council, Hana Abdul Qader, was shot while leaving her home, said Noor Al-Din Saied, spokesman for the Iraqi Islamic party in Mosul.

American soldiers assigned to the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force and Iraqi forces arrested more than 60 suspected insurgents in the city of Haswa, 31 miles south of Baghdad, on Saturday, the American military said yesterday.

State-run Al-Iraqiya TV also reported that Barham Saleh, a Kurd who is deputy prime minister for national security affairs, confirmed that the 275-seat National Assembly elected in January would convene March 16.

That is the anniversary of the 1988 Saddam-ordered chemical attack on the northern Kurdish town of Halabja, which killed 5,000 people. Mr. Saleh met with alliance leader Abdel Aziz al-Hakim on Saturday when the alliance convened to discuss the issue.

“The United Iraqi Alliance proposed to convene on March 15, but we proposed the 16th, the anniversary of Halabja massacre when Saddam ordered his army in 1988 to kill Kurds with chemical weapons. On this day we want to denounce this massacre as we establish a new democratic Parliament,” Mr. Jundiyan said.

Mr. al-Jaafari and the alliance agreed on Mr. Talabani’s presidency during a March 3 meeting with Kurdish leaders in northern Irbil. Kurds had long wanted the job for Mr. Talabani, the leader of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan.

The alliance, which won 140 seats in the assembly, needs the 75 seats held by a Kurdish coalition to gain the two thirds majority needed to elect a president and two vice presidents, the first step toward setting up a government under a prime minister.

Ayad Allawi, the interim prime minister, who controls 40 seats in the assembly, also has been negotiating to keep his job. Officials have said the post of speaker probably would go to a Sunni Arab – either interim President al-Yawer or interim Minister of Industry Hajim al-Hassani.

A Sunni Arab speaker would go far toward appeasing the minority, which is believed to make up the core of the insurgency and, like the Kurds, represents 15%-20% of Iraq’s estimated 26 million people. But unlike the Kurds, Sunni Arabs largely stayed away from the election to protest the American presence in the country.

Separately, left-wing journalist Giuliana Sgrena claimed American soldiers gave no warning before they opened fire and said yesterday she could not rule out that American forces intentionally shot at the car carrying her to the Baghdad airport, wounding her and killing the Italian agent who had just won her freedom after a month in captivity.

An Italian Cabinet member urged Ms. Sgrena, who writes for a communist newspaper that routinely opposes American policy in Iraq, to be cautious in her accounts and said the shooting would not affect Italy’s support for the Bush administration.

The White House called the shooting a “horrific accident” and restated its promise to investigate fully.

Ms. Sgrena’s editor at the daily Il Manifesto, Gabriele Polo, said Italian officials told him 300-400 rounds were fired at the car. Italian military officials said two other intelligence agents were wounded in the shooting; American officials said only one other agent was hurt.

Without backing up the claim, Ms. Sgrena said she believed it was possible she was targeted because America objected to methods used to secure her release.