http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20041227/pl_nm/iraq_election_dc&cid=615&ncid=1480BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraq (news - web sites)'s top Sunni Muslim party is withdrawing from Jan. 30 elections, saying persistent violence would keep people from voting in the Sunni north and west.
"We are withdrawing," Mohsen Abdel Hamid, head of the Iraqi Islamic Party, told a news conference on Monday.
"We are not calling for a boycott but we said we would take part only if certain conditions had been met and they have not."
His party had threatened to boycott the election unless it was postponed by up to six months to ensure that voters across the country would be able to vote.
Violence in Sunni areas has raised fears that voters there will be too intimidated to cast their ballots.
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