The US and Masoud al-Barazani

Sources at the US President George Bush administration has attributed the reason for the absence of Kurdish leader Masoud al-Barazani from attending a meeting for the Iraqi opposition, held in the White House last week, to problems relating to travel.

The spokesman for the US national security council said that the only reason for the inability of Barazani to attend, was because of reasons relating to travel measures and not to other political reasons.

For her part, a spokeswoman for the White House said that Barazani had the intention to attend the meeting and the US had worked to facilitate his travel to the US but he could not attend for several reasons pertinent to travel arrangements.

The New York Times said on Thursday that Barazani, who is the strongest Kurdish leader in north Iraq, refused to attend the meeting because he is disappointed over the policy of Bush's administration.

The paper's report quoted an official at the US administration saying that Barazani's absence caused disappointment to the American attempt to topple Saddam and that Washington had proposed transporting Barazani from Turkey in a private plane.