Schroeder, Chirac, Blair to try to mend Iraq rift

The leaders of Germany, France and Britain meet in Berlin on Saturday in a bid to heal splits in Europe over the Iraq war and agree policies that analysts say could pressure Washington to compromise over Iraq's future.

The German government said yesterday Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder would host French President Jacques Chirac and British Prime Minister Tony Blair for talks at his office in Berlin at 0930 GMT on Saturday followed by a news conference at 1130 GMT.

"The meeting serves to agree to common positions in foreign policy after there were divergent opinions in the run-up to the Iraq war," the government said in a statement.

The Iraq war opened up deep divisions in Europe, souring relations between backers of the US-led invasion like Britain, Spain and Poland and vocal opponents led by France and Germany, who thwarted Britain's bid for a UN mandate for the conflict.

Britain and France are veto-holding permanent members of the UN Security Council while Germany holds a rotating seat.

The split between what US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld dubbed "Old Europe" and "New Europe" also hurt attempts to forge a common European Union foreign policy. Analysts said the Berlin talks could restart that drive. With US forces in Iraq suffering almost daily casualties from guerilla attacks and costs of the occupation mounting, Washington wants a new UN resolution to encourage other countries to contribute more troops and cash.

But France, Germany and Russia have criticised a draft US resolution to that end and demanded a bigger role for the United Nations and a quicker transfer of power to Iraqis.

US President George W. Bush will seek concessions from Mr Schroeder when the two meet on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly next week, their first direct talks in over a year. Mr Bush hosts Russian President Vladimir Putin later in the week.

Talks in Geneva on Iraq's political future at the weekend failed to narrow differences but Security Council members vowed to continue working for agreement on a new resolution.

A French foreign ministry spokesman said yesterday that Paris wanted fast international recognition of Iraqi sovereignty - preferably within a month - but accepted it could take time before a full handover of power from US forces was possible.

Mr Blair's spokesman said the Berlin talks would touch on economic matters and other European issues as well as Iraq. The leaders could discuss the proposed Iraq resolution but that was not the main purpose, he said. A European diplomat said he did not expect the talks to produce a common text on Iraq.

Martin Koopman, an analyst at the German Council on Foreign Relations, said if the three leaders agreed a joint stance on Iraq's future, they could force Washington's hand.

"It would make it very difficult for the United States to oppose such a position in the Security Council," he said. "In any case, it would mean an extreme upgrading of Europe."

Mr Koopman said mounting pressure on Mr Blair at home over how he made the case for war with Iraq and a realisation of his limited influence in Washington had led him back to European partners.

"Blair knows quite well that in the long term he cannot achieve much in foreign policy as a junior partner of the United States and that he needs the cooperation of Germany and France."

John Curtice, politics professor at the Strathclyde University, said Mr Blair would seek help for post-war Iraq.

"One of the problems with Iraq is that the UK government was a bridge between the US and some European countries, and that bridge has effectively snapped. It needs rebuilding," he said.