Iraq's oil minister said on Sunday a group of companies led by Nippon Oil Corp was 'stalling' in negotiations to develop the Nassiriya oilfield and that a deal had to be done by January 24 or Iraq would go it alone.

'Regrettably the group of companies has been stalling the negotiations. We will have a final decisive round of talks on the 24th of this month,' the minister, Hussain al-Shahristani, told reporters.

'Either we reach an agreement or we will start the work of developing the Nassiriya field ourselves and we are capable of doing that.'-Reuters