On Thursday morning, a vehicle rigged with explosives went off in northeast Baghdad, killing four people and wounding a dozen more, while two more car bombs in the center of the capital killed two people and wounded 14. 

Two border policemen were also ambushed along the main Iraq-Jordan highway and shot dead, while three policemen were killed in an early morning car bombing in the main northern city of Mosul. 

Violence a day earlier, including a bombing against a wedding party in south Baghdad, killed 28 people. 

And 46 more people died in unrest on Tuesday. 

The latest attacks took to more than 580 the number of people killed in May, with more than 1,000 having died in less than two months, according to AFP figures based on reports by security and medical sources. 

Iraq has seen a heightened level of violence since the beginning of the year. 

The UN has called for Iraq's leaders to urgently hold talks to resolve wide-ranging political disputes that have been linked to the surge in the violent attacks. 

Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari warned on Thursday that "If there is no political agreement, then it will affect security, and there won't be a stable security situation."  

Speaking during a news conference in Baghdad, he said, "This is a golden rule." 

He added that it was "the government's responsibility to redouble its efforts to revise its security plans, to contain this wave, to prevent this from sliding into sectarian war."