Sunni Iraqi party blames US for foreign interference, poll boycott

A leading Sunni Islamist party on Monday blamed the US for opening the door to "Iranian interference" in Iraq, and for another Sunni party's decision to boycott the March parliamentary polls, DPA reported.

The statement from the Iraqi Islamic Party (IIP)followed the call from a leading secular Sunni party, the National Front for Dialogue (NDF), for its supporters to boycott the March 7 elections.

The NDF is led by Saleh al-Mutlaq, one of the candidates that Iraq's Justice and Accountability Committee banned from running in the polls because of his past connections to the former ruling Baath Party.

Announcing the party's boycott, an NDF spokesman said its decision followed US General Ray Odierno's comments last week that the people who run that committee, Ahmed Chalabi and Ali al-Alami, were "clearly influenced by Iran."

"We in the Iraqi Islamic Party are surprised to read statements from the US regarding the negative Iranian interference in internal Iraqi affairs," the party said in a statement Monday, expressing its "sorrow" over the NDF's decision to boycott.

"We ask: Who made Iraqi land an open theatre for regional and international interference? Who is legally and ethically responsible for the violations of Iraq?"

The IIP, which some Iraqi analysts have suggested could stand to gain by the NDF's withdrawal from the race, urged Iraqis to vote in the coming elections.

"Building an independent and unified Iraq can only be achieved through the participation of all Iraqis in free and fair elections, and allowing true representation for all components of the population, without the exclusion of any party for subjective reasons," Monday's statement said.

"The Iraqi nation has become fully aware of the threats and dangers surrounding it and is able to face and overcome them by consolidating national unity and rejecting all forms of foreign intervention, wherever they might come from," the party said.