Sunni Arab party to join new alliance - Iraq PM

BAGHDAD, Aug 26 (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 today.

The Iraqi Islamic Party of Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi had initially 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.

''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.

An employee in the Iraqi Islamic Party's media office, however, denied the party had joined the alliance or had any plans to do so.

The US ambassador to Iraq had 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.

The new alliance aims to shore up Maliki's government and would have a big voting bloc in parliament.

Iraq's coalition government has been paralysed by infighting between political parties, which are deeply mistrustful of each other and reluctant to make compromises.

Nearly half of Maliki's cabinet has walked out, accusing the Shi'ite prime minister of sectarianism.

Tens of thousands of Iraqis have been killed and millions displaced in an explosion of violence triggered by the bombing of a Shi'ite shrine in the town of Samarra in February 2006.

Maliki is under growing pressure from the United States to show political progress towards national reconciliation at a time when US forces in Iraq have been boosted to 160,000 to give his government time to reach a political deal.

But none of the political benchmarks set by Washington have been met -- laws on sharing Iraq's oil revenues, setting a date for provincial elections and easing restrictions on former members of Saddam Hussein's Baath party serving in the military and civil service have not yet gone to parliament.

REUTERS KK VC1735