US President George W. Bush called Iraqi political leaders on Saturday, asking them to work together to defuse the sectarian violence in the gulf country.

The Iraqi leaders whom Bush spoke to included Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari; the head of Iraq's largest Shiite political party and the country's most powerful Shiite politician, Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim; Iraqi National Assembly President Hajim al- Hassani; Tariq al-Hashemi, a leader of the main Sunni coalition; former Iraqi premier Ayad Allawi; Iraqi President Jalal Talabani; and Kurdish leader Massoud Barzani.

It was the first time Bush had spoken to Iraqi leaders since Wednesday's bombing of a revered Shiite shrine that prompted days of reprisal attacks.

"The president congratulated Iraq's leaders for their strong leadership and their efforts to calm the situation and for their statements against violence and for restraint," said Frederick Jones, a spokesman for the White House's National Security Council.

In addition to encouraging them "to continue to work together to thwart the efforts of the perpetrators of the violence to sow discord among Iraq's communities," Bush also pressed each of the leaders to find a way to restart negotiations among Shia, Sunni and Kurdish leaders to fashion a permanent government, Jones said.

On Wednesday, Iraq's holy Shiite mosque of Ali al-Hadi in Samarra, which contains tombs of the 10th and 11th of the Shiite's 12 most revered Imams, was attacked with its golden dome badly damaged.

The bomb attack triggered reprisal violence in Iraq. At least 140 have been reportedly killed in the sectarian violence.

Source: Xinhua