Iraq's firebrand Shiite leader Muqtada al-Sadr, who had called for a nationwide rebellion against US-led forces last year, reached out to Sunni clerics for coordination, spokesman for a Sunni association said on Monday.

"A delegation from the office of Sadr visited the headquarters of the Muslim Scholars Association and met with Harith al-Dhari, head of the association, for coordination between the two parties,"said Abdul Salam al-Kubaisy at a press conference.

Kubaisy declined to give further details but said the talks wereconcentrating on coordination between the two factions on Iraqi affairs in the current situation.

"We would welcome any national comprehensive dialogue built on methodological bases and the separation between resistance and terrorism, because some are trying to relate the Iraqi resistance to Zarqawi group and loyalists of the former regime," said Kubaisy.

"The dialogue should lead to the withdrawal of the Americans from our country," he said.

The meeting was apparently defying a more comprehensive dialogueamong different sects and ethnic groups across Iraq sponsored by the interim government to patch up disputes over the political process.

Both the Sunni association and Sadr's group have refused to jointhe dialogue, the first of its kind since the US-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003.

Neither did they take part in the elections on Jan. 30, which will generate a new national assembly and a new government.

"We will not take part in any political activity under the occupation, and the elections took place under it and we have doubts about its honesty, but we respect the choice of the participants," Kubaisy said.