The city skyline at dusk in Reykjavik, Iceland Photo: IC

Iceland's outgoing left-right coalition government said Sunday it had reached a deal to continue together in power for four more years, more than two months after winning a majority in a general election.

Prime Minister Katrin Jakobsdottir of the Left Green Movement will continue to head the government, the parties said.

The Left-Green Movement, the conservative Independence Party and the center-right Progressive Party together won 38 of the 63 seats in parliament in the September vote, up from the 33 they had held since the previous election in 2017.

The unusual alliance - which has earned Jakobsdottir some criticism and saw her own party emerge weakened from the election - has brought Iceland four years of stability after a decade of political crises.

This is the first time since 2003 that an outgoing government has held on to its majority in an election.

"It has been complicated for the past four years and it will continue to be complicated. But maybe it is also healthy having to work with people who don't agree with you on everything," Jakobsdottir told AFP.

The government's new program focuses heavily on tackling climate change. "We will set ourselves an independent national target of a 55 percent reduction in emissions for which Iceland is directly responsible by 2030," the document said.

Reykjavik had previously agreed to a 40 percent cut, at the COP21 meeting in Paris in 2015.

The government's program also calls for the creation of a national park in the center of Iceland to protect one of its natural treasures, a proposal that had been a major source of conflict for the three parties during their previous term.

AFP