As reported in the NY Times:

Iraqi and American negotiators have agreed to a draft of a long-awaited security agreement to govern the presence of American troops in Iraq, American and Iraqi officials confirmed Wednesday night.

The agreement remains subject to approval by the political leaders in each country.

Negotiating teams have been working on the agreement for five months. The two sides have come close to an agreement before, only for their optimism to prove premature.

The difficulty in reaching a final agreement reflects its importance to Iraq and the United States. Technically, the document will provide the legal basis for American troops to remain in Iraq beyond 2008. But it will also amount to a political document, spelling out for the people of each nation the most difficult issues of this war, notably how long American troops will remain.

The main sticking points, in fact, are also the most delicate: setting a timeline for American troops to leave and declaring whether American forces would be granted immunity from Iraqi prosecution.