Reaction in Iran to the approval by Baghdad of a controversial military pact with Washington has been mixed, with praise from the judiciary, a blast from conservative papers and silence from government.

"In this regard the Iraqi government has performed well and we hope that the result will be to the benefit of Islam and the sovereignty of Iraq," Iran''s chief of judiciary Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi Shahrudi was quoted as saying Tuesday on the judiciary website.

"Security and stability is in the interest of the regional nations. We hope the American troops leave Iraq according to the pact," added the judge, who is appointed by Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

The controversial pact won approval from the Iraqi cabinet on Sunday with the support of the major political blocs representing Iraq''s Shiite majority and its Sunni and Kurdish communities.

The agreement, due to be submitted for a final parliamentary vote on November 24, allows US forces to remain in Iraq until the end of 2011 and would replace a UN mandate which expires at the end of this year.

Parliament speaker Ali Larijani urged Iraqi lawmakers to resist the pact which he said strengthens "US hegemony in Iraq," in statements carried overnight by the official IRNA news agency.

"With this so-called security pact, they were after turning Iraq into antoher US state but the Iraqi sources of jurisprudence, government and nation resisted for eight months and changed the articles of the pact seven times," Larijani said.

"The Iraqi nation and parliament should realise that the time for resistance is not over yet," he was quoted as saying on Monday.