A prominent Sunni Muslim cleric has urged Shia Iran to do more to halt the sectarian violence that many fear is dragging Iraq into civil war.
The Qatar-based Sheikh Youssef al-Qaradawi said Tehran had the means to stop the violence in Iraq.
Addressing senior Muslim clerics and officials meeting in the Qatari capital Doha to launch a dialogue between Sunnis and Shia, al-Qaradawi said: "There is no doubt that Iran has power and influence (in Iraq)...and can stop this turmoil and put out this fire...before it is too late."
"The power which is hostile to Islam...is plotting to divide this nation along ethnic, denominational and territorial lines," said al-Qaradawi.
He did not specify the power in question.
Ayatollah Mohammad Ali Taskhiri, who heads an Iranian body that seeks to unify followers of Islam's various branches, accused the United States and Israel of fuelling sectarian divisions in Iraq and Lebanon.
"The enemy's exploitation of the natural differences of opinion between Shia and Sunnis...represents a response to September 11," Taskhiri said, referring to the attacks in the United States by members of al-Qaeda.
Iranian officials often accuse the United States of stoking sectarian tension in Iraq where most people are Shia, like most Iranians. Washington accuses Iran of contributing to the violence in Iraq.
The three-day forum in Doha has drawn more than 200 delegates from over 40 countries including Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, head of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference, Ali Gomaa, the Grand Mufti of Egypt, and Mahmoud Hamdi Zakzouk, Egypt's religious endowments minister.