Iraqi Shi'ite leader Hakim heads to U.S. to meet Bush

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Powerful Iraqi Shi'ite Muslim leader Abdul Aziz al-Hakim flew to the United States on Tuesday on a trip his party said would include talks with President George W. Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

The Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council (SIIC) said issues to be discussed included Monday's agreement between Bush and Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki to start formal talks next year about the future relationship between Baghdad and Washington.

That agreement will help shape the size and role of U.S. forces to remain in Iraq.

Officials at SIIC, the biggest party in Iraq's Shi'ite-dominated government, said Hakim met Maliki in Baghdad on Monday night. Maliki announced the agreement with Bush in a televised speech from his residence on Monday.

The SIIC officials did not say when Hakim would meet Bush and Rice, who are both attending a U.S.-sponsored Middle East peace conference in Annapolis near Washington.

Hakim said on November 19, soon after returning from medical treatment in Iran, that he had recovered from lung cancer. He last met Bush in the White House last December and later visited the United States in May for cancer treatment.

Hakim's party has close ties with Iran, which Washington accuses of funding, training and arming Shi'ite militias blamed for sectarian bloodshed in Iraq.

Iran denies the charges and blames the violence in Iraq, in which tens of thousands of Iraqis have died, on the U.S.-led invasion to topple Saddam Hussein in 2003.

(Reporting by Mariam Karouny; Writing by Alaa Shahine; editing by Sami Aboudi)