WASHINGTON — The negotiations between Iraq and America over the status of American forces in the country are spilling over into the presidential contest.

This week Prime Minister al-Maliki raised the prospect that the agreement between his government and the Bush administration may include the timelines for withdrawal favored by Democrats since President Bush sent 30,000 additional troops to Iraq in early 2007.

Yesterday, the McCain campaign’s national security adviser, Randy Scheunemann, told The New York Sun that the presumptive Republican nominee was prepared to accept whatever came of the current discussions on the “status of forces” agreement being hammered out in Baghdad.

“We are dealing with a sovereign government,” Mr. Scheunemann said. “If that sovereign government asks us to leave, we will leave. And if that sovereign government wants to continue to work cooperatively with us until they are able to provide their own security, we will stay. What we will not do is set an arbitrary timeline to withdraw irregardless of conditions on the ground or agreement with the sovereign Iraqi government.”

The Obama campaign earlier in the day criticized Senator McCain for declining to accept a timetable for withdrawal. A senior foreign policy adviser to the campaign, Susan Rice, said in a statement: “It’s time for John McCain to explain why he refuses to ask Iraq’s leaders to take responsibility for their own future, and why he has completely changed his own stated position that he would leave Iraq when the Iraqis ask us to. The American people need a strategy for succeeding in Iraq, not just a strategy for staying, and John McCain’s stubborn refusal to adjust to events on the ground just shows that he has no plan to end this war.”

Senator Obama himself suggested last week that he might refine his earlier commitment to the 16-month timetable he has endorsed for the exit of American combat troops from Iraq. In a press conference, he said he would consider the stability of the country in deciding troop withdrawals, a position that comes close to tying troop reductions to conditions on the ground. The Illinois senator also has said he will travel to Iraq this summer to meet with American commanders there.

The new round of withdrawal talk began after Mr. Maliki’s office released a statement from Monday during a visit by the Iraqi leader to Abu Dhabi. “The current orientation [of the talks] is to reach a memorandum of understanding either to withdraw the forces, or to set a timetable for their withdrawal,” the statement said.

Yesterday, Mr. Maliki’s national security adviser, Mouwaffak al-Rubaie, appeared to go further. “We can’t have a memorandum of understanding with foreign forces unless it has dates and clear horizons determining the departure of foreign forces,” he said, Reuters reported. “We’re unambiguously talking about their departure.”

When Mr. Maliki visited Iran earlier this year, he said publicly that he would pursue a security deal with America, a decision that goes against the wishes of the Iranian regime, which sponsored and harbored his Dawa Party before the fall of Saddam Hussein.

American officials have downplayed the talk of withdrawal timelines. Speaking yesterday at the Fort Lewis Army base in Washington state, Defense Secretary Gates said: “This transition of control and primary responsibility for security is a process that is well under way and, based on everything I’ve heard, we will be able to continue.” He added, however, that the pace of withdrawal would be based primarily on the ability of the Iraqi security forces to take responsibility for their own security.

The Bush administration has made July 31 the target date for wrapping up a multi-year agreement on the status of American forces in Iraq. If both Mr. McCain and Mr. Obama endorse its terms, the pact could defuse the Iraq war as a general election issue.

Other issues to be ironed out in the agreement include the legal status of American soldiers and contractors who violate Iraqi laws. The arrangement also will set the terms of the leases of American bases in Iraq, likely over a period of at least 10 years.

In an interview with the Sun last month, Sheik Ahmad al-Rishawi, leader of the Anbar Awakening, the Sunni Arab tribes that worked with the Marines and Army to unseat Al Qaeda from their safe haven in western Iraq, said he did not object to a status of forces agreement.

“With a diplomatic understanding, we will be able to solve all the problems,” he said. “We fully trust the Americans. We know the United States never in its history occupied a country. On the contrary, they were occupied and they were able to fight the occupier.”