Iraq and the US have reached preliminary agreement on a pact to govern the future use of US forces in the country, Hoshyar Zebari, Iraq’s foreign minister, said on Thursday. The draft would be shown to top Iraqi leaders on Friday.

“We have a text,” he said after hours of meetings between Condoleezza Rice, US secretary of state, Iraq’s prime minister Nouri al-Maliki and others. “There is no final agreement but we are very close . . . everything has been addressed. Tomorrow is a very important day.”