BAGHDAD, March 22 -- Iraq's most powerful Shiite Muslim cleric intensified his opposition to the country's interim constitution in a letter released Monday, threatening to boycott meetings with U.N. envoys who are expected to help chart the transition from American occupation if the constitution is endorsed by the U.N. Security Council.

The threat by Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani marked another dramatic assertion of the reclusive, 73-year-old cleric's authority in the attempts to fashion a political arrangement after the U.S. administration of Iraq ends on June 30. While Sistani has already made clear his objections to the interim constitution, the letter was forceful in questioning its legitimacy, demanding that it be amended and warning of the consequences of not revising a document praised by its supporters as the most liberal in the Arab world.

The letter, which was dated Friday and bore the stamp of Sistani's office in the sacred Shiite city of Najaf, said flaws in the constitution "will lead to a dead end and bring the country into an unstable situation and perhaps lead to its partition and division."

The interim constitution, known as the Transitional Administrative Law, was signed March 8 in what Iraqi and U.S. leaders praised as a landmark in Iraq's progress toward a democratic state. But the signing followed days of wrangling prompted by Sistani's objections, and within hours, Shiite members of Iraq's Governing Council insisted that parts of the document had to be revised.

The document calls for nationwide elections to be held by the end of January 2005 to choose a 275-member transitional assembly. That body will serve as a legislature, draft a permanent constitution and choose a president and two deputy presidents. By unanimous decision, the three-member executive will then choose a prime minister and cabinet to run the government.

At the time, Shiite members of the Governing Council said Sistani objected to two key provisions in the constitution: a clause that gave Kurds effective veto power over a permanent constitution and another that allows either of the deputy presidents -- likely a Kurd and a Sunni Arab -- to reject decisions of a Shiite president. While most groups in Iraq contest the precise figures, Shiites are believed to number about 60 percent of the population, with Sunni Arabs and Kurds the largest minorities.

In the letter released Monday, Sistani specifically mentioned only his objection to the three-member executive. He said it "lays the foundation for sectarianism in a future political system." Supporters of the arrangement have contended that the veto power of the deputy presidents was the most decisive way to protect the interests of minority Sunnis and Kurds. But it clearly curbs the authority of a Shiite president, and Sistani said he believed it would create deadlock that could only be broken by foreign intervention.

Iraqi leaders have said they will ask the U.N. Security Council to pass a resolution legitimizing the handover of authority on June 30. Sistani said in the letter that he feared U.S. officials would seek to include the constitution in such a resolution. If it was endorsed in any way, Sistani said, he would boycott meetings with U.N. envoys due to arrive in Iraq soon. They are expected to help craft an interim authority that will take over from the U.S. administration in June and stay in power until the elections in January.

"We warn that any such step will be unacceptable to the majority of Iraqis and will have dangerous consequences," he said.

U.S. officials in Baghdad had no immediate comment on Sistani's warning. "I have no knowledge of any such letter," said Daniel Senor, a spokesman for L. Paul Bremer, the U.S. administrator of Iraq.

Since the fall of President Saddam Hussein's government last April, the Iranian-born Sistani, long known for his disavowal of an overt political role by the clergy, has intervened repeatedly in key moments in Iraq's political transition. The moves have solidified the clergy's authority and collided with U.S. ambitions to guide a process that has repeatedly changed course. His supporters say his moves are calculated to empower a Shiite majority that has lacked political clout through Iraq's modern history.

Last year, he insisted that a constitutional convention be elected, forcing the Bush administration to scrap its original plan for Iraq's political transition. The compromise that followed in November -- a process to choose a transitional assembly through a system of regional caucuses -- was, in turn, discarded after Sistani raised objections. In both cases, his opposition mobilized tens of thousands of supporters among the Shiite community, where he enjoys unequaled authority as a religious and community leader.

There are already signs of grass-roots opposition to the constitution. In a sermon Friday, about 2,000 worshipers gathered in Firdaus Square to hear a withering indictment of the document. In Shiite neighborhoods, Sistani supporters have passed out petitions denouncing the constitution and insisting that it be amended. Their objections range from the document's liberal definition of citizenship to the power of an unelected, interim government to make binding decisions before the January elections.

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