The National Dialogue Front led by Saleh al-Mutlak, a leading Sunni MP banned from the election on account of links to the Baath Party of executed dictator Saddam Hussein, confirmed its candidates would not contest the poll.

A party spokesman said the decision was taken following remarks made by General Ray Odierno, the top US army officer in Iraq, who alleged that the committee which barred Mutlak from standing was controlled by Iran.

"The National Dialogue Front cannot continue in a political process run by a foreign agenda," the group's spokesman Haider al-Mullah told reporters in Baghdad.

"The National Dialogue Front therefore announces its stance is to boycott the forthcoming election and the invitation is open to other political entities to take the same stance."

Mutlak was the main Sunni figure in former Shiite premier Iyad Allawi's secular Iraqiya list, and his withdrawal is a setback for Allawi's bid to unseat serving Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, and hopes for reconciliation.

However, electoral authorities told AFP the boycott was largely symbolic and had no official status because the deadline for parties to withdraw has passed and ballot papers have already been printed.

Mutlak -- whose bloc has nine MPs in the present 275-seat parliament -- was among hundreds of election candidates barred from the vote by the country's Justice and Accountability Committee.

Mutlak and other Sunni leaders have repeatedly claimed that the JAC is controlled by Iran and is being used to oust them from politics and allow the selection of proxy candidates that Tehran can use to effectively govern Iraq.

The JAC is run by former Shiite deputy prime minister Ahmed Chalabi and his ally Ali al-Allami, who spent a year in a US-run jail in Iraq, who are both seen as close to the Iranian government.

While in Washington on Tuesday, General Odierno said Chalabi and Allami had ties to Tehran's Quds force and "clearly are influenced by Iran."

"We have direct intelligence that tells us that," the commander told an audience at the Institute for the Study of War.

Odierno said Chalabi and Allami had several meetings in Iran with a close aide to the commander of the Quds, the covert operations arm of Iran's powerful Revolutionary Guards.

"And we believe they're absolutely involved in influencing the outcome of the election. And it's concerning that they've been able to do that over time," Odierno said, apparently referring to the Tehran government.

His comments were backed by US ambassador to Baghdad Christopher Hill.

The dispute over who can stand in the March 7 election has raised sectarian tensions and alarmed the United States, which views the polls as a crucial precursor to a complete military withdrawal by the end of 2011.

The vote is seen as a test of reconciliation efforts between the population's Sunni minority, dominant under Saddam, and the Shiite majority now represented by Maliki's government.

Mutlak's decision is a u-turn on what he said Monday, when he told tribal chiefs in Baghdad that Sunnis had "tasted the bitterness of a boycott" in the 2005 parliamentary ballot and "it was not the solution" this time round.

Election organisers said his boycott was officially invalid.

"We did not receive any request from the party to withdraw, so, for us, they (the National Dialogue Front) are still part of the Iraqiya list," said Hamdiya al-Husseini, a senior official with the Independent High Electoral Commission (IHEC).

Allawi's Iraqiya list appears to remain the favoured choice among voters in the Sunni Arab strongholds of Anbar, Nineveh and Salaheddin, analysts have told AFP.

Voters on Saturday appeared unmoved by the withdrawal of Mutlak's party and indicated it would not stop them voting for Allawi.

"I will vote for Iraqiya whether Mutlak's list participates or not," said Haider Ali Mahmud, a 41-year-old mechanic in Samarra, in Salaheddin.

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