A third hostage, a Lebanese engineer kidnapped four days ago, was also released, Lebanon's official National News Agency reported yesterday.
The Kurdish region in Iraq's north already has seen a flurry of post-election bargaining between Kurds and the governing Shi'ite Muslim religious party, the United Iraqi Alliance.
Preliminary results from the Dec. 15 election have given the Shi'ite group a strong lead in the voting for Iraq's 275-member parliament, but not enough for it to govern without other political blocs.
A year ago, it took nearly three months of negotiations between the Shi'ite religious alliance and a coalition of Kurdish parties to form an interim government after a Jan. 30 election that was boycotted by the Sunni Arabs at the core of the insurgency.
The first quarter of 2006 looks more crucial as Iraq tries to shape an administration that will govern for four years. US officials are pushing the parties to form a broad-based coalition government, and failed negotiations could worsen the civil strife.
''This is perceived, inappropriately or inaccurately perhaps, by the enemy as a time of vulnerability, as the government transitions from its transitional government to a permanent government, to the constitutional-based, democratically elected four-year permanent government," said Brigadier General Donald Alston, spokesman for the US-led coalition force.
The Sunni Arab visit to the Kurdish region was the first since the election, whose results have been protested by Sunni and secular Shi'ite parties. Their trip came as Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari, a leading member of the governing United Iraqi Alliance, met yesterday with Kurdish regional president Mazoud Barzani and discussed the outlines of a future coalition government.
''We agreed on essential principles for exerting efforts to form a broad-based government, a strong national unity government. Meetings will be continued later here and in Baghdad and we will continue to cooperate until we achieve what is beneficial for Iraq," Barzani said.
