Iraqi President Jalal Talabani was to return from months of treatment abroad, with his crisis-hit country on the brink of breakup but his native Kurdistan buoyant with statehood hopes.

Iraqi President Jalal Talabani was to return from months of treatment abroad, with his crisis-hit country on the brink of breakup but his native Kurdistan buoyant with statehood hopes.

"President Talabani is coming home on Saturday July 19 after receiving successful health treatment in brotherly Germany," his Patriotic Union of Kurdistan said on Friday.

The PUK said Talabani, due to fly into his Kurdish fiefdom of Sulaimaniyah, would resume his duties as head of state, in a statement by his son Qubad.

While most of Iraq's political power lies with the prime minister's office, the 80-year-old Talabani was long seen as a key mediator between Iraq's feuding factions.

Talabani will return to Iraq on the eve of a deadline for parliament's various blocs to agree on candidates for his job, the latest step in what has been a protracted and tumultuous process to renew Iraq's leadership following April elections.

The event comes weeks after militants of Takfiri terrorist group, the so-called Islamic State in Iraq and Levant, conquered large swathes of land in Iraq north and west, and after peshmerga units took control of the city of Kirkuk and several neighboring oil fields.