A car bomb at an Iraqi Kurdish political party headquarters in the town of Jalawla killed two Kurdish security recruits and wounded two on Sunday, security and medical officials said.

An officer in the Jalawla police said the bomb exploded at the local headquarters of Iraqi President Jalal Talabani's Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) after a number of people seeking to join the Kurdish peshmerga security forces had gathered, killing two and wounding two.

A medical source at Jalawla Hospital confirmed the toll.

Ethnically mixed Jalawla is in Diyalah province, and is one of the areas which Iraq's autonomous Kurdistan region wants to incorporate, over the strong objections of Baghdad.

The dispute over territory in northern Iraq is the greatest threat to the country's long-term stability, diplomats and officials say. Ties between Baghdad and Kurdistan are also marred by disputes over oil and power-sharing.