Jack Straw said today that the election in Iraq represented a "real blow" to the insurgents' campaign of terror and called on the international community to support the new government.

Addressing the Commons, the Foreign Secretary said Britain would call for an early meeting of Iraq's neighbours and Group of Eight countries to build international support for the new national assembly. He said: "Yesterday's elections represent a real blow to this disgusting campaign of violence and intimidation."

He went on to pay tribute to Iraq's security forces which policed the poll. "The United Kingdom will continue to offer every support to the political process in Iraq as set out by the United Nations, working with our international partners including through the EU," he said.

"We will seek an early meeting of the Sharm-el-Sheik group of Iraq's neighbours and G-8 countries to build on international support for Iraq. And we will continue to work for a central role for the United Nations in supporting the political process."

Earlier Iraq's interim prime minister Iyad Allawi urged the country's rival ethnic and religious groups to unite after an estimated eight million voted in the historic election but he warned that insurgents would launch more bloody attacks.

Mr Allawi told television viewers: "Starting from today, I will begin a new national dialogue to ensure all Iraqis have a voice in the new government." While the election was less bloody than expected, Mr Allawi warned the insurgency was far from over. But he added: "The terrorists know they cannot win. The whole world is watching us. As we worked together yesterday to finish dictatorship, let us work together towards a bright future - Sunnis and Shias, Muslims and Christians, Arabs, Kurds and Turkmen."

Analysts said the real test of the election was whether Sunnis accepted the outcome and joined the new government. While in some Sunni Arab areas many queued through the day to vote, in other towns, notably Baiji, Ramadi and Samarra, almost no voters turned up.

In the Shia south and Kurdish north, turnout was strong. Electoral officials said a first round of counting had ended and a second stage begun.

Shia leaders quickly made assurances that they planned to bring the Sunni minority, dominant under Saddam, into the fold. "We are looking at ways of including Sunnis," said Ibrahim Bahr al-Uloum, a candidate on the United Iraqi Alliance list. "I doubt very much Iraq will witness a civil war in the short or long run. We reassure our brothers that any step Iraq takes must include all parts of Iraq...No one can be left out."

Across much of Iraq there was a sense of accomplishment after Sunday's vote, with many people displaying index fingers stained with purple polling ink, proud to have disregarded insurgent threats.

Militants killed 35 people in suicide bomb and mortar attacks but the death toll was far below what had been feared. Interior Minister Falah al-Naqib attributed the relative calm to a three-day security blitz, in which he said more than 200 suspected insurgents had been detained countrywide.

Counting was today said to be going smoothly. Initial estimates from the country's independent Electoral Commission suggest that roughly 60 per cent of the eligible population took part in yesterday's historic poll, the first free, multi-party election in 50 years.

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