The White House said Monday that the withdrawal of the political bloc of anti-American Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr would not affect the Iraqi coalition government headed by Prime Minister Nuri al-Malik.

"Coalitions in those types of parliamentary democracies can come and go," White House deputy press secretary Dana Perino said as Sadr, a Shiite hardliner, ordered his six ministers in the government to withdraw from the government immediately.

"If the Sadrists were to leave the government... that does not mean that Maliki loses his majority. I think that's an important thing to remember," Perino told reporters.

Sadr's move was a demand for a timetable of the U.S. troops' withdrawal, Lawmaker Nassar al-Rubaie, head of the Sadr movement, said on Monday.

The bloc's 30 legislators will continue to participate in the parliament.

Sadr, a key political ally of Maliki, led his Mahdi Army militia in two uprisings against the American military in 2004 and has long demanded U.S. forces to leave Iraq.

In November 2006, the Sadr bloc announced it had suspended its role in parliament and government to protest Maliki's meeting with U.S. President George W. Bush. However, the bloc returned to the Iraqi political arena months later.

Source: Xinhua