Washington is handing Iraq to Iran, says Saud

US policy in Iraq is widening sectarian divisions to the point of effectively handing the country to Iran, Saudi Arabian Foreign Minister Saud Al Faisal said on Tuesday.

"[Iraq's] people have been separated from each other," Saud told the Council of Foreign Relations in New York.

"You talk now about Sunnis as if they were separate entity from the Shiite."

He urged the United States to work "to bring these people together."

Saudi Arabia has voiced fears that an Iraqi constitution could split the country apart and disenfranchise a Sunni minority that lost power when a US-led invasion ousted Saddam Hussain in 2003. "If you allow civil war, Iraq is finished forever," Saud said.

Such a conflict, he said, would bring in Iran because of its interest in the Shiite-dominated southern part of Iraq, the Turks because of their concern about an autonomous Kurdish surfacing in the north, and Arab nations in the region.

"We fought a war together to keep Iran out of Iraq after Iraq was driven out of Kuwait," said Saud, referring to the first Gulf War in 1991, when Saudi Arabia fought along with US and other allied forces to liberate Kuwait after Iraq invaded.

"Now we are handing the whole country over to Iran without reason," he said.

Saudi Arabia had repeatedly warned of the marginalisation of Sunnis in Iraq.