Sunni Arab party to join new alliance: Iraq PM

By Waleed Ibrahim

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - The biggest Sunni Arab political party in Iraq has agreed to join a new alliance of moderate Shi'ite and Kurdish parties that aims to end political paralysis, Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said on Sunday.

But a senior official in the Iraqi Islamic Party of Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi denied the party had made such a decision.

The party has rebuffed overtures by the four leading parties in Maliki's government of national unity to join them, saying such alliances were not the answer to Iraq's political crisis.

It has, however, been in talks with other parties to try to break the political impasse and reach agreement on thorny issues that have pushed the national unity government to the verge of collapse.

"Today there will be a joint statement, not from only the four parties but also the Islamic Party. There will be five parties, not four. This final statement will include a summary of all points of agreement," Maliki told a news conference.

Omar Abd al-Sattar, a member of the Islamic Party's political committee, said he was mystified by Maliki's comments.

"As a member of the party's political bureau I can tell you that we are not part of any deal made with these four parties," he said.

The U.S. ambassador to Iraq has questioned the credibility of an alliance that did not include Sunni Arabs in trying to further national reconciliation between Iraq's warring Shi'ite Muslim majority and Sunni Arab sects.