BAGHDAD - The leader of one of Iraq's most powerful Shiite parties, Abdel Aziz al-Hakim, has flown to the United States for a medical check-up, according to a statement posted on his party's website.
The Washington Post, citing unnamed US officials, reported that 57-year-old Hakim was in the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Centre in Houston to see lung cancer specialists, but his party would not confirm this.
Hakim heads the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council (SIIC), which until a week ago was known as the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) and was founded in Iran in 1982 as an opposition movement in exile.
According to the statement, Hakim had been due for "medical examinations" for a while, but had put the visit off so he could attend a party conference earlier this week. He left for the United States on May 16, it said.
The White House said the United States had helped Hakim come to the United States, but it did not confirm whether he was taken there for medical reasons.
"We fully expect to work with Hakim and his party in the future," Tony Fratto, a White House spokesman, said in Crawford, Texas, where President George W. Bush was spending the weekend on his ranch.
SIIC has the largest single bloc of lawmakers in Iraq's ruling coalition and wields considerable influence in the security forces through its armed wing the Badr Organisation, which has infiltrated many police units.
Despite SIIC's close Iranian ties, Hakim -- a senior Shiite cleric -- has tried to build bridges with the United States, and last year met President George W. Bush in the White House.
Many have interpreted SIIC's name change as an attempt to put a more Iraqi nationalist face on a party suspected of close links to Iranian intelligence, but the party insists it simply represents an end to revolutionary politics.
05/19/2007 17:51 GMT